


Milo Turns Into an Eldegoss and Has a Rough Time

by WolfStarmie



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Bede learning to be nice, Character Development, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Magic, Stupidity, characters being oh so stupid, help i dont know what im doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfStarmie/pseuds/WolfStarmie
Summary: Milo was having a good day when he suddenly wasn't. A mysterious power with a sick sense of humour transformed him into an eldegoss. Now people will show their true colours (and by that I mean how many brain cells they have) and Milo will have to buddy up with Bede of all people if he wants to have a chance at turning human again and also not getting disqualified from being a gym leader.
Comments: 67
Kudos: 215





	1. A day in Turffield

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm doing I'm just putting this fic here cause its getting kinda big on google docs.

Turffield - Where the sun shines, the wooloo graze among the ruins of a bygone era, and the farmland spans to the horizons. While most travellers only deal themselves with the southern outskirts of town, where a pokemon centre, the stadium and the geoglyph are located, the locals of Turffield spent long days working in some way contributing to the farms. Whether it be bookkeeping, minding the wooloo, or working the fields.

One turns when they hear heavy footsteps, and they see the thick calves peeking out of a pair of worn in boots, the large chest, muscular arms and the pinkish orange hair of Milo. Turffield’s gym leader and grass-type expert. He was chasing something as usual. Wooloo breaking gates and wandering off meant someone needed to catch them. However, his current target was smaller, being instead Milo’s rambunctious flapple that had snuck from Milo’s garden.

“Gala come back here!” The man calls to the flapple, his voice echoing the unintentional joy he gets from jogs like this. Gala, of course, ignored his trainer and kept on flapping away on his little appley wings, chirping in defiance and for the zest of freedom.

With one powerful leap, Milo brings the chase to a conclusion, propelling himself forward, wrapping his large hands delicately around the little dragon, and just barely able to keep himself standing thanks to his strong legs.

“Gala you can’t keep doing this, otherwise I’ll have to use Granny Smith for the tournament.”  
Gala angrily chirps in protest, though whether that was because the flapple’s adventure had ended or the threat of being benched for Milo’s appletun upset him was a mystery.

Milo just smiles, and gently stroked the flapple’s head, calming the little dragon.

“Let’s just get you back home shall we?”

Of course, at that moment, Milo hears a familiar voice, as his younger brother Lambert runs over to the gym leader.

“Milo,” started Lambert, his voice wavering from being slightly out of breath, “ma wants to talk to you. She’s got the other head farmers with her and she said you need to be there too.”  
“Ah.” Milo frowns slightly, his lips puckering into a slight pout as he realises that this may be one of _those_ meetings. “Are they at the stadium?”

“Yea.”

“Great.” Milo then hands Gala to Lambert, the apple dragon sitting comfortably in Lambert’s gloves.

“Please put Gala back in my garden, this may take a while,” Milo says, dread in his voice as he drags his feet towards the stadium. His little brother nodded, and tried to pat Gala’s head as he headed off to the pokemon’s home.

  
What was one of _those_ meetings? Very simple. How to get more money from Turffield’s exports. Milo was forced to go to these meetings because he himself counted as an export. Though, Milo wished that he didn’t have to go to these just because he was the gym leader. Especially since all he did in these meetings was stare out the window of the meeting room they were in, slouching in his chair and looking unusually wide. His mother, who was the head of the wooloo farms, usually prompted Milo to throw out suggestions and ideas, and he would respond with intelligent and ambitious ideas such as “I ‘unno,” and “Is that important?”, the latter of the two prompted a _lecture_ from the guy that deals with the geoglyph and the ruins and…. Stuff. Think his name was Denver? He was a very skinny looking guy with orange hair that stuck out in places and a large pair of spectacles. 

Whatever he was saying about the history of Galar wasn’t as interesting as what was outside. During the off season, the gym trainers (Milo included) would train a new set of Wooloo to be part of next season's gym mission. Wooloo could be very frustrating to direct when you have no experience herding them, and most gym challengers were not professional wooloo herders. So, the gym trainers, along with the shepherds’ pack of yamper, would teach the wooloo how to behave. How to react to trainers, when to push over hay bales, and how to create absolute chaos when they saw a yamper. This last part was the easiest. All it took was a gentle thunder nip to a wooloo’s leg to ensure they never get too close to the little yellow dogs ever again. So far, the wooloo were busy learning how and when to bust the hay bales that had been set up in front of them. Many of them were simply nibbling on them. One wooloo looked unsure about the whole gym mission thing and looked like she was ready to book it out of the small opening between trainers. ...And right on cue, she booked it, bleating defiantly as she rolled away. Everyone at the meeting stared at Milo as he stood up silently, still focusing on outside. He didn’t even acknowledge the meeting he disturbed as he turned and headed out the door, only giving the people in the room a “wooloo escaped” before disappearing down the stairs and escaping from the stadium.

“Oh for… MILO!” His mother yelled out after the excited gym leader, as the rest of the meeting was put on hold as they were now forced to chase after Milo. Milo’s trainers were just as surprised as anyone else when he flew out of the stadium, focusing on the wooloo that had just dashed off.And so, the next few minutes ended up being about calling for Milo to stop as more and more people gave up the chase. If an onlooker didn’t know any better, they would have thought that Milo was the tumbling fluffy sheep, and not the man right on its heels.

Luckily, the chase came to an end when the wooloo turned to avoid Milo, only to smack against an innocent trainer photographing the fields. The green haired girl fell on her bum and the wooloo stopped to baa an apology. That was all Milo needed to catch up and lift the poor wooloo to where it wouldn't cause trouble.

“Sorry about that miss, are you alright?” Milo asked, offering a hand for the girl. She seemed dazed, focusing more on the size difference between Milo’s hand to her own than actually getting up. She was like a stantler in the headlights, staring at Milo with a strange expression he couldn't understand. But the girl at least managed to get up and stand.

“Are you alright…?” Milo asks again, The girl snaps out of her trance, sputtering like an old engine.

“Oh, oh-oh ye-yeah, I’m fine, I’m uh… fine...yeah…” she says, hastily picking up her belongings. The girl seemed to feel like she was caught in some heinous act, though Milo had no idea what she thinks she's in trouble for.

“Wait, you don’t have to leave, this wooloo’s going back to where she’s supposed to go, she won’t interrupt you.”

“Oh-oh no i-it’s fine I was uhm, just heading off,” the girl says, hoisting her large backpack and scurrying away with her tail between her legs. Milo noticed that the girl’s bag had his gym’s emblem embroidered on it, but before he could mention it and maybe stop the girl from feeling like she needed to run away, his mother caught up with Milo.

“Milo you good for nothing child!” She wasn’t happy. “You can _not_ just storm out of a meeting just to chase a wooloo. You made me look like a fool, you made everyone at the meeting look like a fool, you made everything about you ‘cause instead of just letting someone from the gym going to fetch the bugger, you just _had_ to do it yourself. Honestly, Milo, you’re supposed to be a role model for our community but whenever you are not in your garden you try to find ways to be as antisocial as possible and get away from talking to others!”

Milo frowns, placing the now uncomfortable wooloo down, and let the poor thing tumble away from the familial argument it started.

“But ma, I’m just doing my job. I’m supposed to catch wooloo when they run away.”  
“And what about your other jobs? Being a gym leader is more than just playing with your pokemon, Milo. It’s about being a _leader_ .”  
“I do a lot!”  
“Oh really? Name one time you’ve actually _lead_ someone that isn’t also a pokemon. Even your own pokemon don’t take you seriously. Don’t think I don’t know about that annoying flapple of yours that you constantly have to chase after.”  
Milo’s shoulders tensed, and his frown deepens. While he could take his mother's critiques, the moment his grass types or how he treats them was put under question he got defensive.

“Don’t you dare call Gala annoying! He’s a free spirited and curious little guy.”  
“Yea, and there are much better ways of keeping him happy without him needing to sneak out with you having to chase after it. You let him get away with it too, and let him sneak out again and again. You may say you’re as tough as weeds Milo but you’re as weak willed and pathetic as wilting ivy.”

“I am not! I don’t have to take this treatment either.”  
With that, Milo turned and started heading off, leaving his mother.

“See? You make like a wooloo and leave when your ma raises her voice at you. Go sulk in that garden of yours Milo, you won’t suddenly grow good leadership in there!”

Whether Milo heard his mother’s last remark or not, the man felt extra angry when his mother predicted where he was going.

There was no emotion gardening couldn’t fix. The warm sun above, the lovely shades of green that surrounded you, and the sounds of the grass-types playing around the garden could lift any spirit. Milo’s garden was large, acting as the home for all the grass types he caught and befriended over the years. While most people would settle for a greenhouse in order to protect their plants and grass types, Milo couldn’t do that when he had at least eight pokemon that could destroy the glass easily during a play fight. Instead, a large stone wall had been built as a perimeter around Milo’s garden, and a strong mesh had been fitted, spanning from the farthest side of the garden to the roof of the humble cottage Milo called home. This meant that no flying or bug-types could bust in and eat Milo’s prized garden. Everywhere you looked one could see either pokemon or plant, from the lotad pond to the special pots Milo had for foreign plants, to his happy bellossom and her family, to the roses and the roselia hiding among them, to the bench near where his two eldegoss and his gossifleur liked to play. 

Milo was currently sitting on the bench, his arms wrapped around Acala, his gym challenge level eldegoss. The cotton pokemon was singing, mumbling a simple tune that normally makes pokemon fall asleep, but just made Milo slightly calmer and helped ease him when he was tense.

“You don’t think I’m a bad trainer, Accy?”  
“Gossi,” Acala replied, before going back to his singing.

“I’m a very good trainer, I’d just prefer not make anyone upset, you know?” He sighs. “I almost thought my mom was going to bring up my win-loss ratio. Just because I go easy on people starting out the gym challenge doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fight at league level.”  
“Gossi” responded the pokemon.

“Exactly! I’m perfectly good at what I do. _And_ I’m a good leader. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”  
  
He sighs and rests his head on the soft cotton. It was silent for a moment. Birds chirped, Water from the lotad pond splashed, and pokemon whispered to each other.  
  
“Alright…. Maybe… maybe I’m not that good of a leader. But I have no idea what it is that I’m supposed to do to _be_ a good leader. I just do my work on the farm and in my garden, what’s so wrong about just doing things myself? I don’t even like bossing people around. Heck, I don’t like bossing you guys around either.”

Milo glances around his garden. The tsareena that became the gym’s mascot was idly playing with the oran bushes, his gossifleur and appletun asking the tsareena to pick a berry for them.

“Can you imagine how depressing it’d be if I made you all sit in pokeballs? That’s just plain cruel that's what that is. It’s not like it’ll make you guys safer. If a pokemon tries to break in to eat something then my league team’ll protect you all.”

Acala had stopped singing, as the eldegoss had found his own singing relaxing and had nodded off with Milo still cuddling him. Milo couldn’t help but smile when he notices. He scoops up the cotton ball and gently places him on one of the pokebeds.  
“I should probably get some more work done before sundown, then decide what to have for dinner…” It was fairly obvious he didn’t want to join his family tonight for dinner after what happened.

Milo shuts the gate as he leaves the garden, and heads off down the gently worn path.

“I’ll prolly get takeout. Today isn’t a cooking day.”  
With that, Milo heads to the fields to see what needs doing.


	2. A day out of Turffield

Milo woke up the next day feeling very light headed. No nausea involved, just the feeling that the man woke up only to battle an oncoming darkness that wanted nothing more than to put him back to unconsciousness. He stands up with a lot of struggle, and in his foggy mind decides he needs some sunlight to wake up. He heads to his garden, still in pyjamas, unlatches the gate, shuts it behind him, and slumps on the bench. His breathing was getting heavier and the light headedness was not fading away, only getting more intense. The last thing Milo sees before he fainted was his two eldegoss floating over to check on him.

Milo wakes up with his face on the garden floor, his eldegoss looking over him, heads tilted in curiosity. Everything felt wrong, and he chalked it up to the fact that he fainted and landed on the floor. Milo groggily tries to lift himself up, before his mind catches up to the violent realisation that he cannot feel or move his arms. He couldn’t feel his legs either. It felt like he had lost his body and he didn’t know what he had left.

“Oss?” He said, a high pitched mangling of whatever sounds Milo was now able to produce. His two eldegoss flinched, Milo being louder than he realised. The two cotton puffs recovered quickly from their fright, and started to get closer to Milo. In between his attempts to force air into lungs Milo noticed he now didn’t have, he realised that his eldegoss seemed bigger than he remembered, their small brown eyes seemingly larger than he had seen them before.

The two Eldegoss came right up to Milo, and attempted to lift the muscular man with their delicate leaves. Much to Milo’s surprise, it worked, and now the man was standing… the same height as his eldegoss?

He glances around, and notices something yellow around his neck, which he follows to look down at his chest. He sees the yellow connecting to other yellow leaves, covering three large leaves that was now propping Milo up, exactly like those his eldegoss had.

It was at this point that all the evidence connected, and Milo realised his situation.

“I’m an eldegoss?” is what he tried to say, but it came out as “Goss-e eldegoss?”  
At the very least, what he said cemented his realisation.

“Does that mean I can understand what pokemon say now?” It’s what happens whenever someone from a show or movie transforms into a pokemon. Prima, Milo’s league level eldegoss, decided to speak up.

“Gossi?”

This nuanced sentence went into Milo’s mind, and neurons flared as it was translated for Milo. What Prima had actually in his little pokemon voice was: 

“Gossi?”

Okay, maybe understanding pokemon is off the menu. How about moves?  
Not wanting to discover what pokemon level he was by getting utterly beaten by his beloved cotton puffs, Milo tried to use Sing. Should be simple enough, he knew what Acala sounded like when he sung.

“Leur, Leur-leur-leur...:” Milo trails off. He could feel that what he was doing didn’t have… enough oomph? It felt hollow when he started singing and not at all how the move should sound like, so Milo stopped.

Milo’s fake singing, however, was enough to get Acala to use the move on Milo.   
  
_Wait, I don’t want to go to sleep_ , thought Milo as he realised that just because he cant use moves doesn't mean he would be immune to them as well.

He turns away from the two eldegoss and quickly as he could, which, as it turned out, was not very quick. The leaves that Milo could walk with were painfully slow, and the unusual motion quickly tired him out.

As a farmer, Milo was used to working long, hard days in the fields, maintaining fast paces to herd wooloo and carry heavy objects, so getting out of breath scared him a lot more than just turning into a pokemon. It dawned on him that not only was he useless as an eldegoss, he was now weak in what was his (literal) strength.

A wave of sorrow splashed over the now exhausted eldegoss, it was the same kind of sorrow one feels for a loved one when they passed. Before the real grief settled in, one would get upset over something more trivial about the situation than just the overall loss. Maybe knowing that the loved one would never be able to do that one thing they wanted to do. Milo was in that state, more upset that he was sapped of his strength than the fact that he had been mysteriously transformed into a pokemon. 

Milo learned something new about his favourite pokemon from this scenario, at least. Given that he prides on keeping his pokemon happy and safe, it would be impossible for Milo to discover what he now knew from them: Eldegoss could cry.

Gentle tears fell from the once human, as he mentally kicked himself for crying over something that felt trivial, even in the very moment he was upset about it.

The gate opened with a click, and Milo, misty-eyed, turned to look who opened it. A very confused Lambert was peeking into the garden, looking around for something.

“Milo? Are you here?” He asked, hoping his older brother would magically appear.

“Goss! Goss!” Milo called out, trying to get Lambert’s attention and hopefully get him aware of the situation. The boy did notice Milo, and gasped in surprise.

“Ohhh did you just evolve? Congrats Levant! I’ll tell Milo when I see him.”  
  
He then turns around and sees the real Levant, still his usual gym challenge level gossifleur self, fast asleep.

“...Wait…” Lambert frowns. “Levant is over there… Milo is missing and now there’s three eldegoss in his garden…”  
He puts a gloved hand to his chin, connecting the dots.

“Milo has been kidnapped, and as a calling card, they left a random eldegoss here because that’s Milo’s favourite pokemon!”  
He gasps at the revelation. “I have to call the police!”

With that, the boy runs off down the path, his boots kicking up sand as he ran.

Milo didn’t mind his brother’s conclusion, because he’s sure that he can sort this out. However, Lambert forgot to close the garden gate.

“Goss! Eldi-Elga!” The cotton bloom pokemon tried to call out to his brother. He left the gate open and Gala could escape! 

Sadly, his shouts fell on far away, deaf ears.

Shaking the tears from his eyes (his leaves (hands?(hand leaves?)) being unable to reach his face to wipe them), Milo (slowly (very slowly)) gets to the gate in an attempt to close it. With a gentle bat to the frame of the gate, Milo managed to make it move. The man then jumps as much as his tired little body can, and rams the cotton on his head into the gate. It worked tremendously well and the gate was nearly closed now! The only thing in its way now was…. Milo himself. His cotton had got caught and wedged between the wall and the gate.

Really? The eldegoss thought to himself. Lets just see if I can't just pull myself away. He gently tugs, but the cotton had been wedged too well, and was not going to budge from this side. Especially given that Milo was just getting more and more tired from this exercise.

Maybe I can push myself out to get it unstuck? Milo thinks to himself as he inches out of the gap between the wall and the gate. He manages to get all of his cotton unstuck, now all he needed to do was get back inside the garden and then try close the gate.

Click!  
  
The gate shuts behind Milo. He was now outside the garden, his eldegoss looking at him through the gate with curious smiles. Milo sighs. This is fine. At least Milo can trust himself to not go galavanting. With that, Milo sat (can eldegoss sit?) down and waited. His patience was met with a gust of wind.

Serenely, Milo was ripped from the earth he trusted, and was now being carried by the breeze. This is fine. He was in no state to fight the breeze, and besides, he knows the area. He can get back. Maybe a yamper will come to his rescue. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the wind refused to let Milo go, and the eldegoss was forced to come along for the ride over Turffield.

There was a difference between floating against your will and taking a Corviknight taxi. One was a delightful adventure seeing the sights from a birds eye view, and the other was the exact same but you had the reassurance of a giant bird preventing you from randomly dropping down and dying with a splat. Milo was not very excited for his inevitable splatting on the floor.

Turffield was rapidly running out, and soon Milo would be on Route 5. Or even worse if he fell down the cliff into a wild area. The eldegoss tried his best to stop floating, but one may as well tell someone with depression to stop being sad. Milo closed his eyes. Maybe this was how he was supposed to go, gone with the wind until some pokemon saw him and got hungry.

“Ann’... Gotcha!” Came a strangely familiar voice, as human hands dragged Milo out of his thoughts and out of the sky. He looks around and sees that his saviour was the trainer he met yesterday. He was able to see her a lot better now. She had green hair that had been pulled into two loose and thick plaits that fell to her shoulders, and her eyes had a strange look to them. Milo wasn’t one to say something harshly to people, but the woman in front of him made him feel slightly uneasy. It was probably the fact that he was exhausted and paranoid a bird was going to make him their breakfast that he thought this.

“What are you doing in the sky? That's not a good place for you. What _is_ a good place, however, is in my balls!”

Phrasing aside, the girl quickly whips out a pokeball and mashes it into Milo’s cotton. The pokemon flinches, expecting to find himself captured, but to everyone's surprise, that does not happen.

“Error? What do you mean error?” The woman clicks open the pokeball to read what it has to say.

“...What do you mean ‘no pokemon in the vicinity, I just shoved you into an eldegoss. You don’t get more vicinity than that.”  
The girl strokes Milo’s head idly. “Well, despite that message, how about you at least stay at my camp. I probably should learn to take care of an eldegoss after all.”   
  
With that, she starts to saunter back to her camp.

“Goss?” Milo says. That last part sounded curious to him. Did she plan on adopting an eldegoss in the future? Milo did recall her grass-type branded backpack, so maybe she liked grass types! Milo couldn’t see how the woman could help with his situation, so he may as well act like a proper eldegoss so she would know what to expect. Besides, she probably has a team of grass type pokemon, Milo could think of nothing bad happening


	3. Camping Blues

Poison types. She had poison types. As in  _ actual venomous poison types _ . Screw what he said about sticking around and gather some strength, he's leaving even if he has to painfully inch away. 

The girl deposited Milo near a croagunk. The frog was chubby and had simple eyes. It may have been adorable had Milo not be a small grass type. Around the camp, Milo could see the woman also owned: A skorupi, a salandit, a local weezing, a haunter and a toxtricity. Had he not known any better, he'd think about how every pokemon on her team happened to be a counter for his league team, and how she was planning something using this information.

But that's just Milo being paranoid cause he's exhausted and on edge and OH GOD THE FROG IS GETTING CLOSER HELP.

"Ribbit," the croagunk said in its squeaky voice. Milo had no choice but to consider this a threat on his life, and turned to run away from the croagunk. However, Milo's exhaustion caught up with him, and he tripped over gently. He kinda debated just staying like this. Waiting for death to come on the wings of a frog. 

The croagunk croaked and poked Milo, noting the unresponsiveness. The frog turns to where his trainer had been looking for things in her tent, and croaks a loud sound that sounded like it was saying "Ma!"

The woman turns around and sees the fallen Milo.

"'H shit," she says as she runs over to the eldegoss.

"What's wrong? Are you hungry or something?" She picks up the eldegoss and puts him in her lap. "C'mon, you can't die on me, that's rude! Why does this always happen to me ugh. Formaldehyde sweetie, can you fetch me the food bag?" Her toxtricity runs over to one of the woman's bags, carrying it to the scene Milo had made for himself.

"Thank you babie~" she says, digging into the large cooler with a hand not cuddling the cotton pokemon. She picks out a bottle of water and opens it. 

"Would you like a sip?"

Milo made an attempt to show interest, but right now he just wanted to get this existence over with already.

The woman, however, didn't want the eldegoss to die on her, and with a bit of effort managed to get Milo to drink.

Like a plant, Milo perked up instantaneously, surprising himself with how quickly he could sit up and drink more water. It was as if this very bottle of water was a miracle cure, breathing new life in the slightly wilted Milo.

The man started to think of how he got so dehydrated in the first place, and why he didn't notice. It was obvious that eldegoss don't get headaches, since thats a common symptom for dehydration in humans and that would have been his first clue that he needed water, but how did he get dehydrated? Did it have to do with his transformation? Wait. What time is it? How long had he passed out for? He couldn't quite make out where the sun was thanks to the trees on route 5, but timeline wise, he mayhaps passed out in his garden longer than he thought. Napping for a few hours in the sun would be bad, even for Milo, so if he has been an eldegoss for those few hours in the bright sun, it’s no wonder all his movements made him extremely exhausted.

Milo looked at how much water he drank, and was surprised at how little there was left in the bottle when he was satisfied. The woman bends over a bit to look at Milo, giving the eldegoss a smile.

“Was that it? You’re as bad as the plants at work. They droop like crazy but you give them just a little bit of water and they act like nothing happened.

She lifted Milo up and off her lap, the eldegoss feeling like he had some strength in his body once he was firmly planted on the ground.

With that, Milo smiles to the lady, giving her a “Gossi!”, before heading out of the camp.

Saviour or not, Milo was not about to stick around 6 poison types.

Saviour or not, the woman wasn’t happy with this result. “Hey you can’t just leave! That’s  _ rude. _ ” She frowned at the eldegoss, pouting slightly too. Milo stopped his slow escape when he was called out, and felt bad. It was just rude to leave when the woman had invited him in, plus the trainer probably did save his life...twice. He sighs, knowing that he couldn’t go in good conscience, even if he was frightened of what her poison types could do to him.

The trainer grins. “Good! You can leave after dinner if you’re so inclined on going on your merry way.”

She points to a pot that Milo had not noticed earlier. “I’ve got a meal to babysit so I’ll be over here if you need me.” And she goes to mind her cooking.

Milo looked around the camp he was now obligated to hang around, seeing all the poison types minding their own business. He should probably find somewhere to hide so that in case any of them start a play fight, Milo wouldn’t get a poison jab to the face. The eldegoss notices the open door to the trainer’s tent, and he heads inside to hide.

Walking was significantly better now that Milo wasn’t partially dying. It was still slow, but Milo was figuring out the pace. You had to sway slightly, and let the momentum of the cotton on top of your head propel you forward. Milo got to his goal, and headed inside the tent. It was significantly cooler inside the tent, the tent material crinkling under Milo’s leaves. The trainer had all her belongings inside, squirreled in a corner.

Hearing the eldegoss enter, the trainer’s rotom phone floats out of the belonging corner.

“Goood eevvvning, Ferrrn,” the rotom said in its buzzy voice. The rotom then notices who actually is in the tent. “Huh? You’rre not Ferrn,” the rotom says, zooming in on Milo. “And you’rre not parrt off herr team eitherr.” 

Milo said nothing, mostly because whatever he said would be gibberish anyway. The rotom continued its musing, revealing a part of Fern that made Milo grow cold.

“Did sshe steeal you frrom Milo? She did intend on kidnapping the gym leader on this visit. Sshe and I got a few pictures of him yesterday.”

Milo’s mouth changed from its resting smile to a thin line, and the corners continued to fall, as the rotom showed him images Fern took of himself. The camera reel started with the latest images first, starting with Milo chasing the wooloo and working its way backwards. Reverse chronologically, Fern took pictures of Milo being bored at the meeting, the camera using binoculars in order to capture him from a far distance, there was a lot of shots of Milo chasing after Gala, an uncomfortable amount focusing on Milo’s backside, Milo getting dressed for the day, and finally, Milo asleep. The last two had been taken right through his window, and Milo’s fear of the woman returned as he witnessed how his privacy had been violated. It showed plainly on his face when the rotom stopped showing the eldegoss pictures and turned to look at him.

“It would be wisse to leave, before Ferrn usses you as bait to lure Milo where nobody will notice him disappearing. She may try to slip you something if you eat her food. She’ss got a habit of that.”

Milo did not need any further prompting, and left the tent and hid behind it, where Fern wouldn’t see him.

Where exactly were they on route 5? Sometimes Milo would walk to Motostoke because it was a refreshing little trip, but it looked like he was past the bridge that spanned over the wild area.

There’s no way he could make it over the bridge and head to Motostoke, either the wind, some pokemon or Fern would ruin that idea one way or another, so he’ll probably have to head to Hulbury. That would be a far walk for the slow eldegoss, but maybe he can get someone to carry him. There was also the train stop on route 5. What time was it? The rotom did say it was evening, and, ignoring the implication of him being stuck as an eldegoss all day, that meant that the sun was likely setting soon. Did they do trains after sundown? Milo never used the train so he didn’t know. But there should be people at least. Protect him from Fern if she catches up to him. Maybe take him somewhere safe. 

Oh, wait! Nessa! If he could find her in Hulbury, he could probably get her in on this whole “help I’ve been turned into a pokemon for some reason’ thing.

Ok so, we need to sneak away from this crazy stalker woman, get to Hulbury, and find Nessa. That’s not too bad of a plan, he just needed to leave this woman’s camp.

Unsure of this being a good idea or if it’ll just sap his strength, Milo tried to leap forward, propelling himself through the air. His cotton caught the air and slowed his descent, but it also let him drift a humble distance as well. He continues this rhythm, leap, drift, land, leap, and heads for the train stop.


	4. Train stop of thought

Milo was grateful that the woman never noticed him leaving, as the cotton plant found himself in a small building. This was the route 5 stop, according to a little sign up on the door.

A bored security guard looked over at MIlo, and gently pats the cotton pokemon.

“Are you on an adventure, young lady?” _Lady_? How on earth does Milo look in any way like a female eldegoss? ...Or does this security guard think all grass types are girls. Why do a lot of people make that mistake?

Milo’s face turned to an offended pout, and the man raises his hands in forgiveness.

“Oh, my bad, sorry if I offended you, ma’am, did not mean to imply anything untoward.”

Milo huffed. There was no point lecturing the man, Milo had no way of articulating his points. Instead, Milo glanced over at a timetable for the trains. To his surprise, trains run very late. Really late. Who is riding a train at _midnight_? Surely people go to bed at 10 pm latest. What a strange system. Anyway, there are trains running, so he didn’t need to worry about being too late. What time was it now? He glanced over at the clock hanging up on a wall. It was late 5pm already? Good gosh… Well, the next train would be here soon enough, luckily.

**…**

**…**

**…**

This was boring! How do people deal with all this waiting? Oh yeah, they’re probably not an eldegoss pressed for time, terrified that for every second he isn’t moving is a second that a kidnapper/stalker is going to catch up with him. They also had phones. They could read stuff. 

What’s on the walls? There was the clock, there’s the timetables for the trains, there was a map of the train lines. There was the vending machines next to the security guard. There was a notice saying keep all belongings and pokemon safe. Wait… can pokemon use the train? The wouldn’t have a sign up for travelling pokemon would they? Milo was sure he saw a video of a herdier using the Unovan train system to get around, but what about Galar?

He glances to the security guard. He would know… was… was Milo going to have to ask this man if he could go on the train? The last thing he needed was to be stopped before he could get on a train.

“Goss?” Milo said. It bothered him how all he could say was gibberish that nobody could understand. The guard at least glanced up at Milo.

“What’s up ma’am?”  
“Goss goss goss,” Can I use the train.

“Uh-huh.”  
“Goss goss goss,” Please understand I am asking you a question through my limited body language, and not just making noise for you to baby talk me.

“Really?”

“Goss goss goss,” You’re not paying attention to me are you?

“And then what did you do?”  
“Goss goss goss,” I snuck on a train and hoped I wasn’t about to become growlithe food because the security guy was too busy thinking I was cute to realise I asked him a question.   
“Oh wow, you must be so brave!”

He then taps the vending machine next to him. “How about I give you a snack for that story? Do you like berry crisps?”  
What? ...Fine, food is better than nothing. He’ll just have to hope that he’s allowed on the train.

Milo nods, and the man happily exchanges some coins for a little bag. Milo had never seen a pokemon friendly bag before. It was made out of a flimsy paper even Milo could easily tear open. The man put the bag in front of Milo and the eldegoss inspected it. Huh.

Slices of oran berry had been sun dried and put in the bag, the crisps losing their bright blue hue in the process. Milo would happily cherish the gift the man gave him.

As if on cue, the train arrived, and Milo picked up his bag of crisps and hops towards the train. Behind him, Milo hears the security guard talking into a walkie talkie. 

“Leave the doors open a bit longer, Emma, there's a little eldegoss that wants to get on the train.”


	5. Hulbury nights

Milo learned he disliked trains. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was small and lightweight, but he was caught unawares by the train lurching into motion, sending the eldegoss tumbling. The only other being on the train, a tired man in business attire, helped the eldegoss and let Milo sit next to him, so Milo wouldn’t fall over again. Milo tore open his bag of snacks, and curiously tried one. It was sundried oran berry, can’t really complain. The fresh version is always better, but as something that had been stuck in a vending machine for who knows how long, it wasn’t too bad. Milo offered the man some, and he accepted, gently chuckling and petting Milo’s head.

Milo got to enjoy the sights from the windows while finishing his treat, as the train meandered to Hulbury. Hills and trees on one side, the ocean on the other. As the last of the sunlight waved goodbye to Galar for the day, golden hues that dyed the landscape slowly drifted off. Trees caught in the sun said goodbye to its golden green leaves, accepting its nightly turquoise dress, the hills copying this as well, as flowers also closed up for the night. The ocean’s sparkle never lost its lustre, reflecting the sky and more in its waves, and as the last of the yellows left the ripples, the ocean seemed to transform into an inky beast, tracing its fingers along the edges of beaches. The outskirts of Hulbury soon became Hulbury itself, and Milo was sent flying as the train came to a halt.

“Oh, sorry, you alright?” The man asked as he picked up the eldegoss. “It must be bumpy for one so small, eh?”    
Milo nodded, picking up his empty crisp packet and heading out of the train. Hopefully he will never have to ride one again.

There was a woman Milo could only assume was the conductor, as she seemed excited to see him, taking pictures of Milo, cooing at him and helping him leave the path where people needed to walk. She waved goodbye to Milo, before heading back into the train to continue her job.

As Milo left the station, he was hit with the smell of the ocean. Hulbury was a small fishing town, and people would travel by just to visit the markets on the weekend. During the day, the town had the air of bustle. People, pokemon and fish, walking, shouting, selling and being caught, it was a busy town, and even when it was calmer, one could still hear the echoes of people unloading boats, shouting prices, and eating meals.

However, it was now evening, and the town in this format reminded Milo of Turffield. Turffield was calm, whether it was day or night, the town having the patience for things to grow. Hulbury right now was also in its calm. People settling in their homes, even the most late of boats have already docked and the fish that weren’t caught made it to their nests to rest.

The night was blue in between the glow of the yellow street lamps, the sea calmly swaying to the horizon. The view from the top of the hill by the train station evoked thoughts in people. As they look around, one could only think of things like ‘I don’t know where Nessa actually lives. Oh dear.’

Milo squinted as he looked around. Despite squinting boosting his vision by 100%, Milo could not see a giant luminous sign pointing to where Nessa lived. He did see a giant luminous sign for the water gym at least. It would be a good place to start.

Milo started hopping down the slope from the train station, passing by brick houses. Curious, they all looked the same, Thin buildings with two storeys. Milo wondered what it must be like having to live in such a small house. And what about the stairs? Those must be awful to have to walk down when you’re sleepy.

Following the brick path to the stadium, Milo notices that the doors were closed, and that there was no light inside. His heart sank. He had been hoping that Nessa was spending a late night dealing with the business end of gym leadership, locked away in the main office hoping Milo’s accountant would answer the phone because the numbers refused to add up ‘cause accounting was easy until suddenly  _ it didn’t add up _ .

Not that Milo had that experience.

Still, what could he do now? Try breaking the door? It was made of glass, and that was fragile. But Milo was a soft cotton puff, and something told him that he may have a type disadvantage here. Maybe he could start screaming? If the neighbours got annoyed enough, maybe they’d call Nessa and have her deal with it? That sounded like a bad idea too, and a guaranteed way to get a free boot to the head. What else could he do?

Milo looks at his reflection in the glass. He hadn’t seen himself before, and it kind of hit home, seeing that he was an eldegoss. There was nothing about him now that could inspire anyone to think of Milo as a human. His freckles gone, his green eyes replaced with by hazel, and anything else that could have helped give him a resemblance to himself wasn’t there.

Milo wasn’t here physically, only this eldegoss was.

Milo, too busy musing about his appearance, caught the attention of Nessa as she walks back home from the lighthouse. The flash of white that was eldegoss’ cotton drew the woman's eyes to her gym, where a pokemon was just staring at the glass doors.

She approaches the pokemon, and recognises it as an eldegoss. How couldn’t she? It was her rival’s favourite pokemon.

“Hey little guy,” Nessa says, bending down to look at the cotton bloom pokemon. The pokemon, broken from her trance, squeaked and turned around.

“Eldegossi! Goss-ah! Feelah!” She said.

“Are you waiting for your trainer?” Nessa couldn’t help but think this eldegoss was waiting for someone. To her surprise, the pokemon shook her head, and walked over to Nessa’s leg.

“Gossa! Ees fee, Feelah! Eelf!” The eldegoss chirped. It was like she was trying to talk. She even responded to Nessa’s question. She seemed too smart to be a wild pokemon, but she didn’t have a trainer? This was odd. She’d have to call Milo about this.

“Okay, how about I take you home with me, does that sound good?”

The eldegoss nodded her head. Wow this pokemon was smart. Milo would probably love to have a look at her. Nessa picks up the eldegoss by the bottom leaves, and was surprised by her weight. She was both heavier and lighter than Nessa expected, and the pokemon leaned into her grasp for balance. Nessa chuckles, patting the cotton pokemon’s fluff, and heads home with her new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of what Milo was trying to say in his last sentence: "Nessa, its me, Milo. Help."


	6. Time with Nessa

That night, the eldegoss showed her mischievousness. It started with the call to Milo. The moment Nessa mentioned out loud she was phoning Milo, the eldegoss started screaming “Feelah” at her. It was loud enough that Nessa didn’t hear that she had gone to voicemail and had been kicked off the phone call. She scowled at the eldegoss and shushed her, which, to her surprise, worked.

She tried again, this time hoping the farmer would pick up, but again, she was sent to voicemail. Milo’s cheery message played out of Nessa’s phone, and she sighs.

“Hey Milo, its Nessa. I have an eldegoss here you may want to look at. Please call me when you have the time, bye~”.

While she was listening to the phone, her eyes had wandered. This turned out to be a mistake on Nessa’s part. With nobody looking at her, the eldegoss had wandered onto Nessa’s office table, taken a pen and was now scribbling on Nessa’s paperwork.

“Wait, NO!” Nessa said as she witnessed the crime.

She quickly snatched the pen from the cotton pokemon as well as the paper and surveyed the damage.

Luckily it was the blank underside of Nessa’s dentist invoice, but that didn’t mean the pokemon could go unpunished.

She picked up the eldegoss and put her on the ground.

“No pokemon on the table, got it?”

The cotton pokemon glanced at Nessa, but the gym leader could see from her hazel eyes that she was strategising a new plan. Luckily for Nessa, her home was mostly pokemon proof. Water types, afterall, don't understand things like water damage, and tend to be very happy showing off their hydro pump skills.

This meant that the eldegoss’ options were limited. No books to chew on, no pictures to knock off the walls, and nothing fragile in the pokemon’s reach.

She realised this, and the strategy faded from her eyes.

“No pokemon on the table, got it?” Nessa repeated.

“Goss eef…”

  
  


Nessa also discovered the eldegoss was terrified of other pokemon. Once she had given the pokemon a name, Pillow, (after her insistence on saying the phrase ‘Feelah’, which sounds like ‘pillow’) Nessa placed Pillow with her two drednaw. They seemed interested in playing with the eldegoss, yelling battle cries and going into playful battle stances, but Pillow started yelling “Eelf! Eelf!,” and leaping to Nessa for safety. This was odd, as the battle would be in Pillow’s favour from the get go, likely not getting hurt from a splash of water or two, but Pillow just refused to even try fighting.

Even with her other pokemon, Pillow seemed nervous around them at best or downright terrified at worst. Did something happen to the poor thing? Scarred by a violent battle so badly that she can’t face another pokemon, even if logically she had an advantage over them? Maybe that's how she got so intelligent. She hid among non-trainers and picked up habits from them.

However, Pillow being terrified of other pokemon meant that she would have to sleep in Nessa’s room. The whole house had been pokemon proofed, except for her room. In between the blue ocean wallpaper was a closet, a small but humble bookshelf, a dressing table with makeup sprawled all over, a second office desk with Nessa’s laptop, and lastly, Nessa’s king sized bed, facing the large telly attached to the wall.

No pokemon was trusted in here, as this was where all of Nessa’s breakables were, but Nessa was hoping that with her being in here, that Pillow wouldn’t do anything.

  
  


Nessa would later find out at 4am that Pillow couldn’t be trusted even with Nessa asleep in the same room.

It started with a light. Nessa couldn’t help but stir awake, as her sleepy state couldn’t figure out how to make it go away. She can’t remember what came first, opening her eyes or thinking ‘did I leave my laptop open?’ But as reality settled in, Nessa saw the silhouette of Pillow over her laptop, and Nessa was awake in a flash. A pokemon could destroy her computer with ease, and Nessa had grown to be protective of the thing like it was her own child.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE TABLE? OFF, OFF!”

She lunged out of bed and hurried to her computer, shooing the surprised Pillow.

Nessa turned on a light and surveyed the damages, relieved when she found nothing was harmed, and that all Pillow had done was add “n edfxcedcxcsv dnfm n” to the end of an email Nessa had not yet finished writing.

She deletes it and closes her laptop, before glowering at the shook eldegoss.

“If you go near my laptop again, you’re being kicked out of my house. End of discussion.”

She then heads back to bed and almost instantly falls asleep again. In the back of her mind she wondered if she was being too harsh on the pokemon with her ultimatum, before remember that her laptop was one of the nicest things she owned, and she couldn’t afford to replace it should a pokemon shes only sheltering out of kindness broke it.

  
  


That morning, Nessa made a to do list and checked her phone. She needed to Pillow proof her house and go to a photo shoot. Milo hadn’t even read Nessa’s messages, which was annoying. Maybe his phone got stolen by a meowth? Great. At least there was the league meeting on friday. If she can’t get ahold of him before then, she’d be able to confront the awol grass type trainer at the meeting.

Nessa got dressed and headed to the kitchen with a slightly sleepy Pillow. Nessa wasn’t going to trust the cotton pokemon alone again.

Pillow showed off her intelligence while Nessa was cooking. Pillow found utensils for Nessa’s breakfast, and seemed to know what ingredients Nessa needed for her omelette, pulling out bottles from the spice rack for Nessa to use. It struck Nessa as almost  _ uncanny _ . How did this eldegoss learn how to cook, or, at the very least, know what ingredients are used in an omelette? Of course, a pokemon could be trained to do help in the kitchen, but the way Pillow acted made it feel more than just her remembering a routine around the kitchen.

Pillow was way too smart to be an ordinary eldegoss.

  
  


Nessa got dressed and headed to a corviknight taxi to take her to her photoshoot, Pillow in tow. She had expected all hell to break loose when Pillow saw the corviknight standing over the car, but was surprised as Pillow chirped a hello to the corviknight instead. That was a relief at least.

  
  


Something odd happened at the photoshoot. Nessa had decided Pillow would be best left in the changing room, not to endanger herself or anyone else with equipment that would be around the studio. Plus, pokemon aren’t too worried about nudity, so it would be a good place for Pillow to sit in and not cause damage to anything.

Well, it turns out that Pillow is the only pokemon known to freak out about someone getting undressed.

The pokemon was quiet as Nessa deposited her onto the bench inside the small room, but as Nessa removed her top, Pillow squeaked and rammed her head in the corner.

Nessa, in her bra and shorts, looked at the eldegoss huddled in the corner. She was unsure why the pokemon had such an extreme reaction.

“It’s just a bra, Pillow. There’s nothing dirty about it. You’re more naked than me.”

Nessa frowns.

“I mean, unless the yellow leaves count as clothes? Then that would make you more modestly dressed than most pokemon.”

“Plus, it’s not like I’d be greatly offended if you looked. I’m a model, people have seen me in a lot less.”   
Nessa looks over at the pokemon, still bewildered by her actions. And then something clicked.

“Pillow… are you a boy?”

“...Giss…”

Oh.

Ohhhh.

It all made sense now. Kinda.

“Well, you’re uhm, being a polite gentleman, then.”

Something told Nessa that Pillow needed the validation.

  
  


After the photoshoot was done, Nessa did her shopping for the day, and went back to her home. Pillow was bored/hungry and it was now 6pm, so it was fair that the eldegoss may have wanted something to eat. Once all of her other pokemon were fed, Nessa flopped down on the couch in her living room, her chicken takeout in her hands. Her older dreadnaw rested against her leg and Pillow was comfortable one the couch. Nessa flicked on the latest episode of Sawsbuck Attorneys and began eating.

At some point, she noticed that Pillow was eating his food slowly, pulling a look that asked ‘do I have to eat this?’

“You alright there Pillow? I’ve never seen anyone have an existential crisis over pokefood before.”

Pillow offers Nessa a fake smile before eating another block.

“You’re a weird guy Pillow.”

Speaking of weird guys, Nessa flicked open her rotom phone to see that Milo still had not even read the message she sent.

Alright, maybe his phone did get stolen. It was worth calling before making a mountain out of a molehill. Nessa typed in the gym leaders number and listened to it dial, and to her surprise, she got an answer.

“He-” and she got hung up on.

She breathed in, trying to not get frustrated about the fact that it was clear that Milo was ignoring her. He must have poked the wrong button. It’s okay he must have seen who it was and was about to call back at any moment.

Any moment now.

Any. Moment. Now.

“Ugh, can you believe this guy, Pillow? I swear Milo is antisocial. Try having a conversation with him and all you’re going to get out of him is either something about wooloo or nothing at all. I thought, oh, hey, a bloody grass type, that’ll make him pipe up and have a conversation for more than a few moments, but nope, not even that’s worthwhile to him.

All he cares about is himself! Don’t think he actually gives a shit about anyone else unless prompted to do so. Hell I even tried to make him my rival so we’d have a reason to meetup, but he responded with ‘Well sorry Nessa, my only rival is myself.’ Like wow! It was years ago but he’s so dense it makes me angry just thinking about it.”   
Pillow was quiet. Yeah that’s fair.

“You know what? I’m too angry to let this go, I’m phoning this guy again.”

Nessa angrily pokes in Milo’s number again, and to her surprise, Milo picked up the phone, unaware of the hornets nest on the other end.

“He-”   
“Oi Milo, what’s the big idea ignoring me?”   
“Uhm… Milo isn’t here.”

It took Nessa a moment to realise that, although it sounded almost identical to Milo, the voice was slightly different too. Like a younger copy of Milo.

“He isn’t? Who am I speaking to then?”

“I’m Lambert, I’m Milo’s brother, and uhm, he hasn’t been home all weekend. I’ve been trying to open his phone to see if he put where he was here but I can’t unlock it… He kinda got in a fight with Ma and then I didn’t see him yesterday so I called the cops ‘cause I thought he got kidnapped and Ma hit me with The Spoon for wasting the officers time and erm, and then Pa told me that Milo went to Motostoke to erm, be nice to ladies but I think Pa’s lying cause there's ladies in Turffield, he doesn’t need to go to the city to find some. And uhm, then I tried watering Milo’s garden cause he’s not home and uhm I got a black eye cause apparently grass types really love water and someone kicked me in the face I dunno if it was the oddish or the tsareena cause I uhm, blacked out for a second, and my wallet got wet so I think I lost some of my pocket money by accident- oh uhm am I rambling?”

“Yes.”   
“Oh uhm sorry, Ma says I kinda forget to get to the point sometimes. What was your question again?”

“I asked who you were. Can you tell your brother to call me when he gets back?”   
“Yeah I can do that.”   
“Excellent. Bye Lambert.”   
“Bye miss.”

Lambert, holding Milo’s phone after hanging up, stares a bit at the phone, before realising he didn’t ask who phoned.

“Aw sheep fluff.”

Nessa calmed down from the strange phone call with Lambert, before glancing at Pillow.

“I can’t believe Milo’s a one night stand kinda guy. Apparently he’s sleeping around Motostoke.”

This seemed like news for Pillow, as he too looked surprised.

Nessa spent her evening Pillow-proofing her home. Setting up the old pokepen she had for hand rearing baby pokemon as well as confiscating anything that can be used for destruction.

She passed Pillow a few times, sitting in the living room, the eldegoss trying to talk to her rotom phone. The rotom seemed uncomfortable, and after a fourth pass, Nessa approached the two pokemon to see what was going on.

“Oh, there you are mizz, I don’t know how to explain it, but thizz eldegozz cannot talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“Itzz like hezz a toddler, mizz. Hezz zzpeaking gibberizz.”

“Wait really? But he understands when I talk.”   
“Yezz, it izz curiouzz how he can underzztand human language, but izz incapable of zzpeach himzzelf.”

Nessa frowns. Pillow just seemed odder the more she learned about him. And then it clicked. Pillow’s high intelligence but no ability to actually speak, his mischievousness and his odd reactions to things like her phoning Milo. Hell, when you thought about it, Pillow did sound similar to Milo, and he even knew who Nessa was most likely when he waited outside of her stadium. It did seem like he was more human than pokemon….

And then it clicked.

“Pillow thinks hes a person!” Nessa blurted out, her eureka moment shining out. “Milo was probably taking care of him already and he escaped. He probably knew that waiting outside the stadium would be the best way to get back to Milo and was hoping he would find me!”   
Nessa grins.

“How’s that for a deduction?”

Rotom played a clapping sound effect.

Pillow fell over and just stared at the ceiling.

After her realisation, Nessa tried her best to make the eldegoss feel taken care of. She gave him toys to play with, food to eat, but something seemed off.

He always seemed to try and arrange things in a certain way, and get frustrated when he ran out of items. He did this with the trash and his food, and Nessa couldn’t help but think he spelt out the letter ‘H’ with his food once before Nessa cleaned it up. 

Like a river drying up, Pillow seemed to lose enthusiasm and his spark to do things, mischievous or not. At some point, it felt like Pillow had given up, as if he had submitted to a fate he couldn’t fight. Nessa realised what was wrong when she woke up before the eldegoss once (as rotom said he usually woke up at 5am sharp), and it was almost poisonous to see the eldegoss crumpled in his bed, a frown on his face even in rest.

Days went by and nothing Nessa did cheered up the eldegoss. He stopped talking, he stopped arranging things. It was like he didn’t see a point in it anymore. Nessa couldn’t help but feel responsible, and hoped that she could find a way to help the poor cotton pokemon at the gym leader meeting.


	7. The Gym Leader League Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this world, Bea and Melony are in the major division and Allister and Gordie are in the minor division

That friday, Nessa headed to Motostoke, Pillow in tow. The steamy city rose to greet the woman as she meandered to the city’s stadium situated at the centre. She entered through the glass doors, relishing the air of silence and calm the building seemed to kept sealed from the outside, and sat on one of the couches.

While Wyndon was the headquarters for the league and all things championship related, Motostoke was the headquarters for the gym challenge and the gym leaders themselves. Any and all business regarding the gym leaders, their roles and their status in the minor or major division went through Motostoke.

This meeting was perhaps the embodiment of that.

“Nessa?” The receptionist called out to the gym leader, “the meeting is in office 5. Kabu is in there already if you’d like to head through.”

Nessa nods and thanks the receptionist, before heading down the hall to the room labeled office 5. The gym leader had been in administrative part of Motostoke’s stadium plenty of times to know where all the meetings were held. Nessa opened the door to office 5 and was greeted by the sight of the older Hoennese man standing up to greet her.

“Ah, Nessa, it’s been too long,” Kabu says, offering the woman a handshake. Nessa giggles as she gives the older man’s hand a firm shake. 

“It’s only been a few months since we’ve seen each other, you make it sound like its a 10 year reunion.”   
Kabu smiles, “Ah, perhaps it's because it feels like that for me. Tell me, how are your parents? Business booming I hope? And who is this lovely lass with you?” Kabu inquired, bending down slightly to pet Nessa’s eldegoss friend.

“My parents are fine.” Nessa said, before lifting up Pillow from her bag.

“This is Pillow. He approached me last week and I’ve been caring for him since. That reminds me, have you seen Milo? He hasn’t returned my calls and I want him to at least take a look and help out Pillow.”

Kabu’s face turned to a frown. “Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing. I got contacted by the authorities on tuesday about Milo, asking if I saw him. Apparently he disappeared over the weekend and nobody’s been able to contact him.”

“Feelah! Ees Feelah!” Pillow announced, staring at Kabu with imploring eyes. Nessa grimaced and tried to discourage Pillow from yelling more by placing him in her bag again.    
“Sorry, he gets rude when Milo is brought up. You say he’s missing?” Nessa shook her head. “No, that can’t be right…” And she trailed off.

It hit her that Milo was actually  _ missing _ , and her mind automatically assumed the worst. Her mouth became a thin line as she thought of a lifeless Milo, his eyes missing the spark of kindness, his body laying still, crumpled in a ditch, waiting for some unlucky trainer to see him. She was interrupted by Pillow yelling, and her thoughts went to anger as Pillow disrespected Nessa’s mental moment of silence for the grass type gym leader.

“Gossa! Gafu! Eelf! Ee. Ees. Feelah.” Pillow shouted, wiggling from the bag.

“Sh-shut up! Can you not understand this is serious??” Nessa snapped at the pokemon.

“Nessa,” Kabu gently puts a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you take a moment to get some fresh air?” He calmly takes the bag and struggling Pillow from Nessa’s side. “I’ll take care of him, alright? Go get some fresh air before the meeting.”

While Kabu tries to convince the eldegoss to calm down (mostly from Pillow giving up on ranting), more gym leaders filed in. Marnie looked a bit lost before realising she had found the right room, and Bede, the other new gym leader, sauntered in, pretending that he wasn’t hopelessly lost as well. Kabu greeted everyone and gave Nessa a reassuring pat when she returned.

As everyone settles in, Kabu looks around and stares at the one empty chair, hoping that a miracle would make the farmer appear on it. It doesn’t happen, so Kabu sighs and clasps his hands together.

“Alright, good morning everyone, I hope the trip here wasn’t too bad. I know we are one short... “ The chair was still empty,” but ah… we’ll get to that.” Kabu perked up a smile, trying to ignore how one empty chair was managing to be a blackhole for Kabu and Nessa’s happiness.

“First, I want to extend a warm welcome to Bede and Marnie, they have taken over Ballonea and Spikemuth’s respective gyms.”   
  
Kabu then let everyone around the room speak about how they were doing before Kabu decides it was time to get to the meat of the meeting.

“Right, thank you, Raihan, for teaching us what a ‘thot’ is. I shall keep this knowledge with me at all times.”

He clears his throat.

“It is that time of year where we must consider our strengths, amongst ourselves and the minor division. I know that our gym order has been the same the past couple of years, but,” and Kabu flourishes to Bede and Marnie, “With new blood, we may see some changes around here. Now, I know you two have never been on the administrative side of gym leadership before, so I’ll explain.”

“The gym leaders league is the private tournament among all 18 type specialists of galar, both the major and minor divisions. It is not only about battles, but also about wits, sportsmanship and strengths other than just in battle. Think of it as both a test as your capabilities as a trainer and your showmanship as a gym leader. Competition amongst the minor division for a spot in the majors is fierce, and if you don't bring your best to the league, then you may find yourself replaced.”

Kabu sighed, glancing at the empty chair again, “which… brings me to our next point. Milo.”

There was a gentle murmur around the table. Melony quietly pointing out that the farmer wasn’t here, and Bea asking if she knew why.

“He’s been reported missing, and while I am concerned for his well being, in terms of the league, there is a risk that he may be disqualified if he doesn’t arrive.”    
Kabu breathes. “It does not help that he is the first gym leader of the majors by choice, so he does see the most competition from both divisions. I understand completely if the stress had got too much for his kind soul and he... _ decided not to be here with us anymore.” _

Kabu coughs, blinking away his tears, fixing his voice before it starts to crack over the pain the possible loss of Milo had on him.

“What I mean to say is… we may have more changes in the major division than just gym order.”

Determined not to end the meeting on that sombre note, Kabu then explains at length about when and where the league is, training suggestions as well as general advice on behaviour.

While this was happening, Nessa eyed Bede, the boy looking bored in a ‘I don’t need to know this I can handle this easy’ kind of way. Nessa then glanced over to Pillow at the back of the room. He had grown worried for Kabu after the Milo speech.

You know, Nessa thought, I’m pretty sure eldegoss is a fairy type…

After the meeting, Nessa collected her bag and approached Bede.

“Hey Bede.”

“Yes?” The curly haired boy glanced up at Nessa. He didn’t say it, but his eyes held an impatient look that was illustrating how valuable his time is.

“So, you heard, Milo is missing, and you see, this eldegoss needs special care. And I realised, oh, hey, eldegoss is a fairy type, you’re the fairy type expert, you are probably as suited for taking care of this lil guy as Milo is.”

She grinned, gently edging the eldegoss onto the table towards Bede.

Bede squints. “Eldegoss isn’t a fairy type. You’re thinking of whimsicott. And what makes you think I’m some kind of daycare? I’m actually very busy with important things.”

Nessa gently edges the eldegoss closer to Bede.    
“Yeah but I mean, he’s easy to take care of, you won't even notice him.”   
Her crocodile smile drops. “Look, Bede, rehabilitating pokemon is part of a gym leader’s duties, and this guy is miserable with me. Today has been the first time in a few days he's actually spoken. Just. I don't know, have Opal take care of him? I can’t do it anymore.”   
  
Bede opens his mouth to retort, but he is interrupted by an eldegoss being shoved in his chest.

“GreatYouAcceptYou’reSoKindBedeHaveANiceDayBye,” Nessa said as she sped walked out of the room.

Bede and the eldegoss glared at Nessa as she escaped, both boys disapproving of her blatant abandonment.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”


	8. How Not to Raise an Eldegoss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merengue is a dance, is pronounced meh-ren-gey, and should not be confused for meringue, a tasty fluffy sweet.

So it turns out Nessa ran as fast as she fucking could to get rid of this eldegoss, so now Bede had to take care of it.

“You better behave, alright? If you break anything you’re gonna be sent to the glue factory. I know that isn’t technically a threat ‘ _cause it's illegal and all_ but you get the gist of it.”  
“Goss eef.” 

Bede’s eyes widened as the eldegoss responded, saying something that almost sounded like human speech.

“Holy shit.” He turned to not look at the eldegoss in his arms.

They had just arrived back at Ballonea via coviknight taxi (as Bede cannot physically walk to Ballonea thanks to be banned from stepping foot in Stow-On-Side). The beautiful city under the trees always took Bede some time to adjust to, as the world became a sunless dimension, illuminated only by mushrooms. But when he did, it always felt like Bede had arrived among the stars themselves. Who could miss the night sky when a galaxy of mysterious glitters glowed all around you? 

Birdsong filled the air, and small pokemon skittered to and fro the human-made paths. Speaking of that, Bede always made sure he was on the path at all times. The amount of times he got kidnapped by a fairy pokemon on his way back him from the convenient store was way too fucking high for a five minute excursion for a leppa pop or two.

Bede arrives at the Ballonea gym and finds himself greeted by his beloved pokemon waiting by the door. And by that it was Bolero in a pissy mood and a scowl on her face.

“Hey. Not today.” Bede says sternly to his hatterene, giving her the ‘I got my eyes on you’ gesture. Normally this would start a fist fight between pokemon and trainer, but Bolero just kept scowling, respecting the silent wish of Bede’s to not have this eldegoss thing be even more troublesome.

Bede takes the eldegoss backstage of the theater half of the gym, where the eldegoss finds himself gaining a fan.

“Oh, who is this cutie?” Fawned Annette, petting the pokemon’s cotton.

“Feelah!”  
“Oh?”  
“Yeah, uh, I think he talks?” Bede began, “he got dumped on me so I’m obligated to keep him here. Do you think we have a dressing room available that he can just sleep in there and all that?”  
Annette shakes her head. “Unless you want to risk him eating the sets we don’t have any space. But he is a grass type, isn’t he?” She fondles one of the eldegoss’ yellow leaves. “If I recall, grass types naturally like sitting in soil. If you just plant him in a pot and water him, he should sprout roots and be like a normal plant I think.”  
She points in a direction. “I think we have some clay pots from the last production if you want to use one of those.”  
“Fah! Fog!” The eldegoss cried, looking offended as if Annette got a detail about grass type pokemon care wrong.

Annette chuckled. “Well, we’re doing rehearsals for act 5, so if you need us Bede you know where to look.”  
Annette walked off, and Bede headed to the storage room to find the clay pot Annette mentioned. There wasn’t any soil, but there was some florist foam. It’s pretty much the same thing, right?

“Goss! Goss!” The eldegoss shook his head as he saw Bede pick up the florist foam.

“Oh be quiet… Merengue.”  
The eldegoss looked confused.

“Yes that’s your fucking name now.”

Bede gently shoved the wedge of florist foam into the pot, watching as the excess was slowly broken off from the shoving, his fingertips easily poking holes in the foam.

“Okay, great, that was easy. Now for you.”  
  
Bede lifts up Merengue and shoves his leaves through the foam. The cotton pokemon scowled at Bede in disapproval.

“Oh don’t give me that look you’re going to like this. Now I need to water you…”  
Bede pursed his lips. “Right, lets put you by the stage so I can keep an eye on you and get you some water.”

Bede meandered back to the table set up backstage for people to drop things off before heading onstage, and placed the displeased Merengue there. Bede then heads off to go fill a mug with water from the bathroom.

He returns and graciously dumps the contents of the mug onto the now unhappy and very wet eldegoss. Water seeped into the cotton like a sponge, leaving it a limp, wet mess.

“Oh.” Bede said. “I didn’t think about your hair… fluff.”  
“Goss.”

“Right. I’ll get a hair dryer then.”  
“Goss! Fo!!”

The eldegoss tried to stop him, but it was too late. Bede fetched a hairdryer from wardrobe and plugged it in. It roared to life, blowing very hot air.  
“This thing can dry an oshawott, it should dry your cotton in a tick!”  
  
Did you know that fire is super effective on grass? Milo knew this, and Bede was finding out as he discovered it doesn't take much for a very hot hair dryer to burn cotton.

“Wait, shit,” Bede said as he realised what had happened, and from the looks of it, Merengue could smell what happened too.

The eldegoss, now with sopping wet burnt cotton, stepped off of the florist block and started to leave.

“Hey, wait, you can’t leave! I have to fucking take care of you!”  
“Goss off Gefe.”  
...Did a pokemon just tell him to fuck off? 

This incited the spite in the curly haired boy, and if he couldn’t throw hands with the eldegoss, he would just have to show how fucking great Bede can be at caring for pokemon.

Knowing that the eldegoss wouldn’t go anywhere quickly, being very slow and weighed down by wet burnt cotton, Bede went to the all knowing source itself: MewTube.

Bede typed in ‘eldegoss care’ and was relieved to see a familiar mug on the first thumbnail. Milo was smiling while holding his eldegoss. “Type life ep 35: How to Raise an Eldegoss.” Ah, Type Life. It was a TV series where they got famous people to show the world how to take care of their specialist type. It would make sense that Milo would be in at least one of these. All of the Galar leaders had an episode. Bede swore by the advice minor division leader Espoonzo offered on psychic types.  
  
So let's see what the eldegoss expert had to say.

The video started with its intro and went into an interview with Milo. He looked like he was uncomfortably scrunched into the chair at a studio somewhere, but talked happily as if he wasn’t bothered by how his broad shoulders were forced to bend.

 _“My first pokemon was an eldegoss, well, gossifluer. My ma didn’t want any part of taking care of a pokemon so I had to do a lot of chores to afford everything myself.”_ _  
_ _“It’s funny, really, I didn’t know you needed a pokemon to catch a pokemon in the first place. Looking back I prolly coulda borrowed one of my pa’s yamper, but instead I just chased the gossifluer for six hours to tire it and catch it that way.”_

Bede fast forwarded the interview, he didn’t give a shit about Egypt or how Milo cried when she died. He stopped when he saw Milo escorting the cameraman into his garden. Good lord that’s his _garden_? It was bigger than Bede’s apartment (and prettier too).

 _“So this is where I keep all my pokemon, and -oh, here he is -”_ Milo lifted up an eldegoss. It looked happy, an expression Bede didn’t know eldegoss were capable of.

 _“This is Acala. He is my gym challenge eldegoss. If you have seen me dynamaxing an eldegoss, then you have seen Acala in action.”_ Acala chirped.

 _“The thing about eldegoss is that they’re more like other pokemon than your standard grass type. They love to walk around, they don’t root and don't learn ingrain, and they primarily take water and food through their mouth just like you’d expect.”_ _  
_ _“What makes them special is this.”_ Milo gently strokes through Acala’s cotton.

 _“Eldegoss cotton is very soft and luxurious. It’s sensitive to heat-”_ _  
_ Oh.

 _“So the best way to dry it out if it gets wet is to leave your eldegoss in the sun-”_  
Well thats not fucking happening in Ballonea.

_“- and just gently try make sure most of the inner cotton dries out.”_

_“But, today is actually a special day. Acala is due a haircut. You see, the cotton on an eldegoss’ head can attract flies and mold if it's not taken care of or trimmed after too long. I tend to wait after the gym challenge season is over before cutting Acala’s off, since eldegoss perform better in battle with the cotton.”_

Bede watched as Acala’s face faded from a smile to a frown as Milo neatly sliced off his cotton, comparing it to a wooloo’s coat.

 _“And once I’m done,”_ Milo pulls out a beanie and places it on Acala’s head, “ _I give him a hat to protect his head.”_ _  
_ Acala then flies out of Milo’s grasp and hides behind some flower pots.

 _“Oop, there he goes.”_ Milo chuckles. _“He hates it but he knows it's good for him._ ”

The camera then zooms in on the sulking pokemon inbetween the pots.  
_“Ah, no eldegoss likes having their cotton removed, but it’ll grow back in no time.”_

Milo then goes on about trimming a battling eldegoss’ cotton to a lovely round shape, some fun facts about how eldegoss deal with their cotton in the wild and how Milo sends the cotton he cuts to the cotton farm and blah blah blah blah whatever this is really boring.

Bede turns off his phone and sees that Merengue had actually managed to wander quite a bit away, out from backstage, off the stage and was wandering up through the seating aisle. Was the video that long? God Milo was boring, but he did give Bede an idea, and he was going to need a beanie and scissors…

  
“GOSS!! GOSS!! EELF!!” Screeched Merengue as more and more hands from people and pokemon came to pin down the surprisingly strong struggling eldegoss.

When the eldegoss saw the scissors and hat in Bede’s hands, he _knew_ what was about to happen, and started to waddle quicker.

Of course, Bede caught up with Merengue with ease, but the thing started screaming blue murder and bit Bede.

It probably would have hurt to high heaven if eldegoss had actual teeth, and Merengue realised this after shoving Bede’s knuckle in his mouth. But the screaming drew attention to the two, and unfortunately for Merengue, everyone sided with Bede and helped him as he tried to cut and vaguely style the eldegoss’ wet cotton.

“Oh shut up. Milo woulda done the same thing if he was fucking here.” This made Merengue more ballistic, as if bringing up Milo invoked a primal rage the eldegoss had for the man and the video Bede watched.

Overall, hairdressing was more tiring than having a fist fight with Bolero, and Bede was panting as he shoved the pink beanie on Merengue’s head. The community effort of keeping the eldegoss still relinquished the freshly barbared pokemon, and Merengue almost flew due to the relief of being released.

The eldegoss quickly found a place to hide under the stage stairs, glowering at everyone through the gaps.

“Bloody hell… you’re welcome,” panted Bede as he glares back at the miserable pokemon. It was at that point that Opal made her presence known.

“Goodness gracious, what happened here? I was just about to visit when I heard the least pink scream known to man.”

Bede pointed to the eldegoss

“Long...story short… he doesn’t like his haircut.”  
  
Opal bent down to see the eldegoss and giggled in delight.

“My oh my, it's been a while since I’ve seen a nice honest man from Turffield.”

Merengue’s expression softened to surprise. 

“No wonder he doesn’t like his haircut, he isn’t a beanie type.”  
Opal slowly approached the stairs and sat down.

“Would you like to trade hats, poppet?” She removed her sunhat, “it’s probably too decorative for your liking, I know you’d like something more simple, but this will look charming on you.”  
  
Merengue, almost ashamed that Opal needed to comfort him, crept out from under the stairs and let Opal trade hats.

To Bede’s surprise, the eldegoss did actually fit better in the sunhat compared to the beanie.

“There, now that’s a handsome lad.” Opal put on her new pink beanie, ignoring how it was slightly moist, and turned to Bede.  
  
“How do I look?”  
“Old.”  
“As blunt as ever, thank you Bede.”


	9. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Bullshit

Milo was starting to think he was in hell. After being imprisoned in Nessa’s house, he was reminded that he was likely stuck as an eldegoss and even the gym leaders weren’t going to help him, and now.

_ This. _

  
Was this punishment? Being made a mockery with wet cut cutton because in a past life Milo pissed someone off? The only highlight was that Opal decided to shelter him for a bit, carrying the eldegoss to a seat, giving him candy and letting him watch play rehearsals. Milo didn’t know a thing about plays, other than knowing the vague plot of some of Spearliam Shake’s more popular stuff. And from the looks of it, this wasn’t Romeowth and Juligoss so Milo was very lost.

From what Milo could decipher from the rehearsal, Bede was some kind of old king, and his daughter was a mawile. Milo wasn’t sure if the mawile biting Bede’s shin was part of the production, but Bede seemed to break character as he yelled “Ow, Fuck! Macarena let go of me! Ah! Ah!”

The other actors onstage inspected Bede’s wound, and unfortunately for him, the show could go on. The rehearsal continued like nothing happened, as Macarena didn’t bite anyone else, but did threaten to go for Bede’s shin again.

“How has it come to this? My sweet pecha blossom, why are your teeth both dull and sharp, your smile sweet yet bitter?” Bede asked the mawile, who turned to look away, as if she was guarding a secret.

“Why can’t you look me in my eyes? I ask nothing but for you to care for me in my old age, but I can see you have chosen a different fate.”   
  
Bede actually looked heartbroken. Maybe Opal recruited Bede for his acting potential, and not just because he was a good trainer.

The rehearsal for the act concluded without much incident, and, to Milo’s dismay, Opal was leaving. She gave everyone some ‘well done’s and some suggestions and was on her merry way out.

Milo chirped to Opal as she walked past, hoping that she would understand that he was saying ‘Wait! Don’t leave me here alone!’

Opal smiled and bent down to pat Milo.

“It’s alright, dearie, Bede is much more reliable than little old me.”   
  
Yeah but he also  _ set me on fire _ . Among other things. Milo waddled after Opal, but soon realised it was futile trying to keep up with her, and the eldegoss slumps sadly.

Opal calls out once last goodbye and Milo once again Bede’s responsibility. Milo wasn’t going to take this lying down. He had a torturous time with Nessa, and he would not let that happen again. Milo was going to do his damndest to talk to some human here!   
  
Milo’s first order of business is to sneak backstage and hope he can find a pen and paper. He would have to sneak past Bede, who, along with a few of his pokemon, were sitting on the stage glancing through the script.

Bede glanced up as he saw Milo, or ‘Meh-ren-gey’ as Bede named Milo, and the curly haired boy just watched the eldegoss waddle for a bit.

Thanks to all his cotton being cut,Milo was a lot quicker, but since he was used to the weight, he tended to lose balance and stumble. It didn’t help that Milo wanted to keep Opal’s sunhat on his head, and so, Milo was adopting a new waddle to keep himself and the hat upright.

“You know, for a moody eldegoss, you sure are cute, Merengue,” Bede remarked.

Milo stared blankly at Bede. Was that supposed to be a compliment.?   
  
Apparently it was, as Bede frowns at Milo’s neutral reaction.

“Something’s off.” Bede says, he slides down off the stage and approaches Milo.

“Every pokemon likes to be called cute.” He turns to look at his mawile.

“Macarena, you are more trouble than you’re worth, but at least you’re cute.” The mawile giggled, Bede smirks and bends down to look at the eldegoss closely.

“See?  _ Every _ pokemon likes being called cute,” Bede then touches the eldegoss’ yellow leaves, ‘so that means.... _ you’re not a pokemon are you… _ ”

Bede cycles through a myriad of emotions. Accusation, confusion, disbelief, doubt, before something clicks, and his expression turns to annoyance, and Bede hisses quietly as the eldegoss.

“ _ Milo _ .”

Milo’s eyes widen, and he finds himself picked up by Bede, and quickly escorted into a small room, and placed on the counter. Bede covers his eyes, before pulling his hands down his face, his eyes scrunched close.

“God you’ve got to be kidding me. Please, tell me you’re noy who I think you are. Please tell me  _ you’re not Milo _ .”

Milo’s head was swimming in a surreal buzz. Bede jumped to a crazy conclusion just because Milo didn’t respond to his backhanded compliment, and instead of leaping off a metaphorical cliff to his death, Bede landed on the solid ground of being correct. Milo couldn’t believe it, and as he shook his head, confirming he was indeed Milo, Bede didn’t want to believe it either.   
  
“Oh for. You’re. God you’re  _ actually _ Milo. You  _ are _ ! But why the fuck are you a- Oh my god you were at the meeting! I saw you! Kabu was about to fucking cry over the idea that you where dead why didn’t you say something??”

“Eldegoss.”   
  
“Oh. Right. You’re a stupid pokemon who can’t speak Galarish.”   
  
“ _ Eldegoss _ .”   
  
“Yeesh your voice gets deep when you’re angry.”   
  
Bede’s eyes widen, as he stares at a distance found only in his mind. He then holds out a finger.

“I have a solution. Bear with me.” The fairy type gym leader then dashed out of the room. Milo could hear him shout “Salsa? Salsa!” as he ran out of hearing range.

It took Bede the exact amount of time one needs to think they’ve been forgotten about to return. Bede had an evil excited look to him and a duosion under his arm.

That’s not a fairy type, Milo thought.

“Alright. Salsa,” Bede let go of the duosion, grinning at Milo, “use Telephone.”   
  
Telephone? What kind of move was that? Oh. Salsa started making telephone noises. Brring Brring, Brring Brring. Bede then made his hand look like a phone and placed it to his ear. Very cute Bede.

“Why thank you Milo. I’m glad you think so.”

Milo’s face scrunched in a frown. He didn’t say anything.

“Oh, a bit confused are we?”

Bede knew what the answer was, and Milo didn’t need to nod his head for Bede to respond.

“If you couldn’t tell already Milo, I can read your mind.”   
  
Milo blinks in disbelief.

“Well, it's more Salsa reading your mind and sending your thoughts to… wait, Milo why are you crying?”

Tears leaked from the eldegoss’ eyes, as the culmination of Milo’s hard work trying to contact someone was finally reached, even if in an unorthodox way. Gratitude for Bede figuring out who Milo was flowed through every part of his being. He finally had some help, and maybe they could both figure out how to change him back?

“Geez… you’re gonna make it rain gracideas here Milo…” Bede couldn’t help but feel empathetic for the grass type trainer, as he could feel Milo’s emotions as they happened, and Bede moves closer to the eldegoss.

“How the fuck did you turn into a pokemon in the first place?”

How could one answer that? Milo pressed his face into Bede, his tears leaking into the boy’s pink shirt, as he tries to recall how and why he fainted in his garden, and waking up as an eldegoss.

“So… you have no clue? Well that’s encouraging. Luckily for you, this seems like bullshit, and I happen to know the wizard of bullshit herself. Come with me.”

Bede carried Salsa and Milo out of the room, Salsa on his head and Milo in his arms. He told everyone that he had an emergency to take care of, and to rehearse without him. Bede then rushed out of the gym and headed to Opal’s house.

Bede knew the old lady better than anyone, and knew how to enter her house without needing her to slowly walk to the door. He placed Salsa and Milo on a table in her kitchen and headed to the lounge.

“Opal?”   
“Pink.”   
“ _ Ugh _ .” Acting on muscle memory, Bede changes his stance to what Opal insists is how he  _ should _ walk in order to be pink. It was stupid, but like everything else Opal taught him, it would be unerasable from his mind whether he liked it or not. The boy sashays into the room, and smiles to Opal.

“Good. What is it dear?”   
“I just had a thought, and I knew if I didn’t ask you about it I’d stay up at night thinking about it, sooooooo,”  _ god _ Bede hated it when he dragged out syllables. It wasn’t part of Opal’s training, some part of his mind thought it would be a fit with the rest of this stupid ‘pink’ regiment and occasionally slips it in Bede’s speech patterns.

“Do you know anything about humans turning into pokemon?”

Opal brings a talon to her chin, gently tapping it. Bede noticed that Opal’s alcremie was sitting on the woman’s lap, fast asleep with a small blanket on top.

“There are some curious stories of people being cursed into a pokemon form. I am assuming you’re talking about something permanent and not just werewolves. Yes… that would be something associated with fairy types, so it would be worth teaching.”

She motions Bede to sit down, which he did.

“You see, sometimes fairy magic likes to manifest near those that lack a certain something, kindness perhaps, willpower or bravery are also common. Fairy magic likes these types of people, they’re easy targets. Human one day, pokemon the next, cursed until they learn their lesson.”

Bede frowns. What the fuck did Milo get punished for? Was his hobby going around kicking puppies?

“I recall this interesting story in the tabloids years ago, of a boy that turned into a kadabra. The only thing they could figure out was that he had psychic powers before he transformed.”

“What happened to him?”   
  
“Bent a lot of spoons and became an alakazam.” Opal cackled at her own weak joke. Bede didn’t find it funny.

“So how does one lift a pokemon curse?”   
  
“Why, by learning their lesson! Fairy magic loves a good growth moment and likes an entertaining show of getting there. Being a pokemon normally means hearing a different side of your own story. It's amazing what people share to an unassuming pokemon”

Bede nods. “I see. So you’d just have to wait for people you know to just tell you what you do wrong?”   
  
“Pretty much.”   
  
“Interesting. Well then, thank you Opal.” Bede stands, “I best be on my way.”   
  
“Yes, of course dearie.”   
  
Bede sashayed out of the lounge, and once he was out of Opal’s line of sight, walked quickly to Salsa and Milo. He silently picks them up and starts walking.   
  
Milo, getting the hang of this telephone thing, asked Bede where they were headed now.

“Turffield. We’ve got a curse to lift.”


	10. Milo Internally Screams A Lot

...And florist foam  _ is not _ an alternative for soil. It’s for flower arranging, hence its called  _ florist _ foam and not  _ gardener’s _ foam. It’s specifically used for cut flowers that cant get water naturally and rely on the foam to do the difficult part of bringing the water to the flower.

Bede was regretting his great intelligence and his natural urge to help out Milo, as the eldegoss mentally raked him over the coals.

Bede had got Milo up to speed on the whole ‘fairy punishment bullshit’, and how Bede and Milo would now go to Turffield to figure out what exactly Milo was doing wrong that they could fix, so now Milo was taking advantage of the fact that he had a captive audience to teach Bede all about the things he did wrong in taking care of a grass type and just gardening in general.

The gym leader had nipped back into the gym to tell everyone that he suddenly had pressing business to attend to, retrieved his pokemon, headed home to get properly dressed for an adventure and headed for the corviknight taxi station.

Bede was wearing a pink and blue jacket, fashioned similar to what he had worn during his gym challenge, but now had branding for Ballonea’s gym on it and the added benefit of not making Bede cry whenever he saw it. All in all it was superior in every way. Milo had been comfortably zipped up, his head peeking out by Bede’s collar bone, and Salsa alternating between floating and resting on top of Bede’s head.

Milo wondered why Bede was taking a corvinight taxi to Turffield, as Ballonea was much closer to Turffield than one may think, it was a straight bike path past Stow-On-Side-

“I’m not allowed in Stow-On-Side.”

Milo blinked in confusion. How does one get banned from- 

“Oh look the taxi’s here.”

The large bird majestically fluttered down, expertly landing with the car in its claws barely making any noises as it touched the ground. The metallic bird tucked in its wings and glared at the unusual trio Bede and his two pokemon shaped up to be. The pilot stepped off the bird, down from the car and lifted up her goggles.

“Afternoon mister, where are you heading?”

Bede gave the woman a social smile, “Turffield.”   
She nods, “Ah, visiting relatives? Just a heads up, apparently the gym leader Milo’s gone missing, so you may get roped into a search party or two.”

Bede gives Milo a reassuring stroke as he feel’s the eldegoss’ sadness.

“I figured. I actually heard about it already. Shall I get on?”

The woman nods, “right you are. Keep all hands and feet in the vehicle at all times and ensure you take all your belongings with you.”   
  
  


Ah. Turffield. Bede remembered when he came here for the first time for his gym challenge.

It smelled like shit!

It still smells like shit. Though living your whole life in shit probably made the smell not so bad. At least, that's likely why Milo wasn’t complaining about the shit smell mentally. Instead, Milo had actually forgot that Bede could read his mind during the long taxi ride, so the man was just thinking personal thoughts.

Milo was thinking about things around Turffield. Of the orchards that just finished the harvest, of the wooloo, of his trainers, and of his family. Bede could taste metal on his tongue as Milo’s mood soured recalling an argument with his mum. For some reason negative thoughts had taste, and Bede tried to clean his palate while Milo thought about her stinging remarks.

Bede started walking in a direction, able to see mentally where Milo’s family home was located. At some point, Milo realised that Bede was walking and thought about how Bede somehow knew where his family home was.

“It’s called mind reading Milo. You had a big fight with your mum eh?”

Milo, once he stopped internally screaming about not having privacy in his own mind, mentally says yes. He knows his mother cares a lot, but she just wants him to be someone he’s not. Milo didn’t have any sense of business and- Lambert!

Bede looked over to a boy in overalls, pink-orange hair sticking out in all directions and an arm in a cast. Bede quickly understood 1. This was Milo’s brother and 2. His arm wasn’t broken when Milo was human.

“Oi, the fuck happened to you?” Bede asked what Milo was thinking. The teenaged boy turned to look at Bede and the zoo on the curly haired boy’s person and smiled.

“Oh hello, I uh. Well it’s a funny story really, you see my brother went missing last week and I’ve taken it upon myself to water his garden-”

“Did the tsareena break your arm?” HOLY SHIT MILO why the fuck do you have a  _ tsareena _ in your garden do you have a fucking  _ death wish _ ??

Lambert shook his head. “Oh no, I was climbing a tree and I fell. I was hungry and I saw a sitrus berry just resting against a branch. Yeah I didn’t notice the skwovet up there and I got a big old fright. So yeah. Broke my arm. Who are you?”   
  
“Uh.” What the fuck was this conversation? Why did he start talking about Milo’s garden if it- You know what, this is the kind of stupidity you handle with safety equipment, lest your brain cells die. It was an advanced stupidity that turned you stupid if you thought about it too hard.

“Bede. You must be Lambert.”   
The boy gasped, “how did you know my name? Are you some sorta psychic?”

Yes but “no. I just figured you were Milo’s brother. It’s funny I walked into you, I need to speak with your mum.”   
  
Lambert gasped again, “I’m not in trouble am I?”

“Oh no, you see I’m looking for Milo myself, so I just want to see what information I can gather from her.”   
  
“Oh… well uh, I know stuff too! Like that eldegoss in you jacket is the same one that appeared in Milo’s garden the day he went missing. I’m sure if you got a psychic to talk to him he would have info to tell you!”

Milo and Bede harmonised emotionally, both surprised by Lambert’s observational skills. Of course, Milo started to think about how proud he was of his brother, while Bede was thinking ‘what the fuck.’

“Well, that sure is interesting, but ah, sadly, doing that won't help with exactly what info I’m looking to gather. Shall we head to your house?”   
Lambert nodded and pointed down the road.

“Right this way Mayday.”   
“Bede.”

The o’ Yarrows had a house that had been passed down through the generations. Stone walls stood strong in the face of ivy and adversity, and the roof had to be repaired every generation or so. It was so picturesque and inspiring of the word ‘home’ that Bede felt like throwing up.

Milo had mixed thoughts. On one hand, he loved his family home, but on the other… he had disappeared after fighting with his mother, and he was afraid to hear what her opinion was of him going missing and the possibility that it was ‘good riddance.’

Lambert opened the door for Bede and called down the house while guiding Bede into some awkward middle space in the hallway, filled with portraits of people Milo was related to.

“Ma we got a visitor!”   
“Coming!”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow was a stocky woman with orange hair tucked in a ponytail and a starn expression on her face. From the looks of it, she wasn’t busy at the moment and seemed friendly to Bede. That is, until her eyes lock onto the eldegoss in Opal’s sunhat.

“Ah, you’re one of Milo’s trainers I take it? I don’t care how many times you guys come in here, I don’t know where he bloody is!”

Bede shook his head. “Oh no, I’m uh, one of… I guess colleagues? Of Milo?” Are gym leaders considered co workers? It felt wrong to say. “I’m Bede, Ballonea’s gym leader.” He offered his hand to the woman, and she shakes it.

She harrumphs, “well, what business do you have here then? We do not raise Milo’s pokemon so if you’re here to drop off that eldegoss you’d best look somewhere else.”    
Bede shakes his head, “oh no, I’m taking care of him just fine, you see, I’m kinda doing my own investigation on Milo’s disappearance so uh, may we talk?”

“As long as you’re not going to ask the low hanging fruit of ‘so where is he’, you may make yourself at home.”

Lambert and Milo guided Bede to the living room, To his surprise, there was a TV and lights in here. Of course, Bede didn’t just  _ assume _ Milo and his family were backwards living peasants, but c’mon, the o’ Yarrows looked like the sort to not have electricity and running water. Or was Bede alone in thinking this?

Ah well, Bede sat down on a couch and unzipped his jacket so Milo could stretch his… legs?

“Do your leaves count as legs?”

Milo had no idea.

Well anyway. Bede looked around the room. There was a lot of… clutter. Reminded Bede of Opal’s house. There was the old lady cabinet with plates, a bookshelf with books older than the dinosaurs and a plethora of family photos. Interesting.

Bede stood up to investigate one of the photos that just had the two parent o’ Yarrows and the two brothers. Milo took after his mother, both stocky individuals, while Lambert looked like a short version of what was either the father of the two boys or an orange meowth someone glued to a man’s body. Only a mouth and green eyes were visible under an untamed jungle of a beard.

Bede spends some time looking at all the different family photos when he is interrupted by the gentle clatter of a tea tray.

“Oh!” Bede said, his face turning slightly red as it usually does when he's offered food, “y-you didn’t need to do this for me.”   
  
Mrs. o’ Yarrow shook her head. “Nonsense, it’s just polite to share some tea with guests. Now sit down, what was it you wanted to ask?”

Oh, where to begin? No really,  _ where to begin _ ? Can’t really ask her ‘hey do you know anything some fairies could use as ammunition to punish Milo with?’ Bede sits down and looks at the tea cups.

“Well… I heard that you and Milo… had an argument before he-”   
  
“That’s none of your concern, that is family business.”   
  
“Right… sorry for asking…” Shit. Bede elbows Milo.  _ Help me out here. _

Milo glanced around for inspiration. Goss…. Gossip! Milo knew all too well that the rumour mill was always turning among the women of Turffield, so perhaps Bede could ask if his mom could dispel any rumours?

Bede frowned. Rumours? How the fuck would Bede know any? Unable to telepathically ask Milo what he should ask, Bede poured himself a cup of tea to make the awkward silence between him and Milo’s mum less palpable and took a sip. Bede then started to fake cough, and managed to subtly say “ _ what rumours _ ”.

Oh gosh. Milo thought back to the one side of the conversation he heard between Nessa and Lambert. Something about him being in Motostoke.

“Ah, sorry, my throat was dry and I wasn’t expecting the water to be that hot.”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow nods, “seems common to run your throat dry with all those monsters you need to train.”   
  
“Ha… exactly. But uh, have you heard of Milo being in Motostoke?”   
“ _ Ah _ ,” she rolled her eyes, “that's my husband’s pet theory.” She chuckles.    
“He thinks Milo takes after him in certain ways, and is doing what he used to do when he was Milo’s age.”   
  
“And that would be?”   
  
“Shagging.” AAAAAAAAAAAA. “City folk are good people to turn to,” AAAAAAAAAAAAAA ,”when boys here have some desires they want taken care of.” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

MILO PLEASE CALM DOWN I CAN’T HAVE YOU SCREAM IN MY HEAD WHILE I’M TRYING TO LISTEN TO YOUR MUM.

Bede swats at Milo’s face, like a passive aggressive pet to stop him from screaming, and Milo realised his internal screaming was affecting Bede. 

It took Bede a bit too long to realise it was his turn to talk. “W-well uh,” Bede’s head sunk behind his jacket’s collar,” do you think it’s true?”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow shakes her head. “Oh of course not. I know my boy, he’s committed to the first thing he chooses to a fault. It’s really annoying since he’s like that with everything. He chooses one thing and you can’t convince him otherwise. That’s why he got a pokemon, that's why he’s the gym leader, that’s why he shirks his duties that aren't related to being in the fields and that's why I know one day he’s going to marry that sweet Deirdre from the cotton farm.”   
  
WAIT WHAT WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?   
  
Bede winced from Milo’s mental outburst. “What do you mean by that?” The curly haired boy kept a mental note about Milo being stubborn and that shirking off part.

“Well I guess you wouldn’t know this, but all of Galar’s cotton farms are to the south past Postwick, but one is set up here. It’s just the father and daughter running it. Because they are far from the other farms they don’t much options for breeding their eldegoss and whimsicott. I believe it was two or so years ago when Dierdre approached Milo about studding out his eldegoss to her farm.”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow sipped her own tea, and Bede mentally prepared to hear something that upset Milo again.

“Let’s just say Milo’s eldegoss aren’t the only o’ Yarrows getting lucky at that farm.”

Bede winced, not at the innuendo, but how loud Milo was protesting all of this.

Milo was grateful that eldegoss didn’t have blood or blushed, as the man would have had a tomato for a head about this. Why did his mother think he liked her  _ in that way _ ? She was just a friend! There was nothing untoward about her using his eldegoss for breeding! It didn’t point to anything salacious between the two! Bede you understand right? RIGHT?

Bede took another sip of tea, trying to make the silence where everything was happening in his head seem more natural, and not that it took Bede a very long time to process what Mrs. o’ Yarrow had to say about her son’s sex life.

“Interesting. But ah, would you mind telling me more about what it is Milo, ah, shirks?”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow smiled. “Oh with pleasure. I can rant all afternoon about Milo.”   
“Well I’d be willing to lend an ear.”


	11. A Night’s Reflection and a Fairy’s Gift

Bede spent the afternoon listening to Milo’s mum, collecting data on Milo’s sins, as both boys piece together out why Milo was likely cursed.

Simply, Milo was a leader in name. Sure he was an accomplished trainer, but to everyone in town, Milo may as well be ‘that quiet guy that does part-time.’

As it was made more and more clear that Milo was bad at being a gym leader, Bede couldn’t help but puff out his chest. Sure he maybe wasn’t the best yet, but with Opal’s help he didn’t do shit like run out out of a meeting to chase a wooloo, or ignored something someone suggested he do, or just not reprimand a pokemon when it escaped for a fifteenth time.    
  
It had actually made Bede curious, cause even with Opal being… herself, Bede knew how to take the reins and be a gym leader. And it felt like Milo didn’t have the same luxury.

“Who did Milo train under?”

Mrs. o’ Yarrow shook her head, “Milo trained himself. There was no gym leader in Turffield before him. It was after Milo beat that stupid looking psychic fellow and a few others as well as that swimsuit model that that Rose feller,” Bede’s shoulders tensed and the boy chanted to himself  _ ’happy thoughts happy thoughts, itchy right wrist, what colour ribbon is gonna come next?’,  _ ”approached Milo about building that stadium to the south and that’s where we are today.”   
  
“I see…” Bede rubs his right wrist, as he reminded himself of it being itchy. He looks out the window. It was getting late.

“Well then, I should actually be going… I need to catch a taxi before it gets dark out.”   
  
“Oh nonsense! You can stay the night. You said you were investigating Milo yourself, so you can use his room.”    
  
The boy’s eyes go comically wide, and his face scarlet. Bede was never really good at reacting to generosity. 

“W-what? Why?”

“Why not? You’re a trustworthy looking lad, and it seems like nonsense taking a taxi if you’re coming back to Turffield tomorrow.”   
  
Mrs’ o’ Yarrow sighed, “Plus it should be obvious I have a son who is not attending meals, so I may have some extra dinner for a guest or two.”

The way Bede’s mind worked was to make generosity sound as unaltruistic as possible, just so that he doesn’t lose his cool freaking out that someone is being nice to him out of the kindness of their heart. He didn’t spend the first day with his first pokemon locked in his room holding the thing and gently squeaking whenever his mental screaming escaped his lips, what the fuck are you talking about? And so, Bede’s mind quickly hot glued an explanation that he was only allowed to stay for the night because Milo’s mum was only using Bede as a way to get rid of extra food. That calmed him down.

“Well then, how could I say no?”

The o’ Yarrow’s had a rather stern ‘no pokemon in the house’ rule. Milo and Salse were okay simply because Salsa was mistaken for a hat for how still he was, and Milo knew that he needed to behave if he didn’t want to be kicked out. So all in all a pokemon was allowed in the house if it was as dangerous a potted plant. This meant that all of Bede’s other pokemon had to be fed outside and unless they stayed in their pokeballs, they had to sleep outside too.

Bede sat on the doorstep as his six pokemon snacked loudly on their dinners. Bolero seemed  _ serene _ for once, which was a satisfying change of pace. Bede had lifted his palm to catch Bolero’s hair punch, but it lay empty as the hatterene didn’t feel like it.

The fairy gym leader looked around Turffield, as the orange sun crested the world in its hues. Bede had forgot how nice the sun can be, as he feels the last of its warm rays on his face, as the wooloo baa’d and the hills covered in crops sang. Bede could see how Milo would love his home.

It still smelled like shit though.

Once everyone had been fed, Bede returned inside.

That may have been a mistake.

  
Bede looked at the heaping of food in front of him with disbelief and confusion. It was shepherd's pie, how fitting from a family of shepherds, but it was the amount Bede had on his plate that scared him. There was no way anyone could eat this much food. Bede knew he ate like a bird but this felt like a cruel joke. The gym leader looked around the dinner table, and, to his horror,  _ he had the smallest portion _ .

To put it to scale, Bede had enough food to bury his large plate and it was more food than he normally ate overall in a day. Mr and Mrs o’ Yarrow had at least double what Bede had, and Lambert had an  _ entire mountain _ of shepherd’s pie on his plate. The worst part was that this wasn’t all of it.  _ There was still enough for everyone to have seconds. AND THERE WAS DESSERT TOO _ .

Bede glances behind his chair, where Milo had taken it upon himself to feed Lambert’s budew lettuce, one slice at a time. There was no way Milo could help the boy escape from the plate in front of him.

Bede opened the door to Milo’s room, Milo in one hand, and his very full stomach in the other. The fairy type trainer was convinced he has just eaten an entire baby’s weight in food, and from how his stomach was complaining, Bede should not make eating babies a regular habit.

“ _ God _ help me…” The curly haired boy said as he slumped onto the foreign bed, Milo giving Bede an apologetic look. Salsa was in his pokeball currently, so there was no telephone currently happening, so whatever words of comfort Milo wanted to day could only be conveyed thought patting Bede’s head.

“Milo… did you see how much food your mum gave me? Was she trying to kill me?”

“Gossi.”   
  
Bede lifted up his heavy head to look at Milo. The farmer made the most out of his limited speech vocabulary, trying to make sounds that sounded like Galarish, but ‘Goss’ and ‘Gossi’ was just a noise Milo made when he couldn’t figure out how to convey a concept well.

Bede decided that Milo was apologising.

“Well… it’s fine… I’ll just not eat for the rest of the month.”    
Bede slides more onto Milo’s bed, taking note of how soft the blanket was, and how much he just wanted to sleep off the onslaught of food he was socially obligated to eat. Sadly he couldn’t do that quite yet, and forced himself to sit up.

“Alright so uh. Milo, care to uh, stop being cursed? You’ve learned your lesson right? You know what not to do now, just stop being a shit leader.”

Bede poked the eldegoss’ forehead. “Fairy magic, I command you to fuck off.”

The spell worked as well as one would hope. Milo was still an eldegoss. Bede frowns and Milo looks around, lost.

“Great, obviously it means you haven't learned your lesson or it wasn’t entertaining enough,” Bede sighs. “Let’s talk about it.”

Bede removed his shoes so he could crumple on the bed, and got Salsa out to telephone.

Milo was introspecting. Maybe he could write down what his mom said? Was he really that stubborn? Or that passive? There was also what Nessa said, about him not really being chatty and that she was still angry over Milo being his own rival. He didn’t know why it angered her, it was certainly true, especially now! Milo’s biggest hurdle was himself.

“Yeah, no shit. But uh, is that really true? Milo do you think your only rival is yourself?”   
  
Milo nods.

“Yeah that’s what the industry calls ‘yikes’”

How was it yikes? Milo thought. It was the truth. It was his own shortcomings that inspired him to push harder. When he couldn’t do something himself, when he needs to ask for help, it was a flaw Milo needed to overcome. That’s why Milo disliked most of his gym leader responsibilities. If he couldn’t do them himself and be self sufficient-

“Self sufficient? What load of bollocks is that?” Bede lifted himself up. “Everyone needs help, there’s no shame in that, but how the fuck can you think that the only person you need is yourself? Yeah no shit you can’t be a gym leader when it’s just yourself. It’s like -ugh- it’s like the theatre. You can’t be the whole production,” hopefully Milo doesn’t know about one man plays,” you’ve got the director, all the actors, the writers and the set designers and the tech people. It's all a mess but it all comes together to make a show possible. You can never be the whole production, hell, I’m not even director, Ballonea gets hired by directors in order to help them make their shows a reality. And yeah, of course it’s not pleasant working with others but that’s how you get things done.”

Bede, unsure if this will be a mistake future him would have to pay for, gives Milo a tired smile. “And well, when you change back, you can ask me anything. Alright? I know you’ve been a gym leader for longer, but Opal is occasionally a good teacher. And when she isn’t trying to change how I act or make me attend moonlight meetings with a council of fairies that make me wake up the next morning with an unbearable itch that leaves my wrist red, she tends to show she’s got 70 years worth of experience doing what we do.”

Milo returns Bede’s smile. While it seems like Bede regards Opal with hostility, it was almost sweet when he acknowledged her as his mentor.

Bede flapped his hand. “It’s no big deal. That old bat lives and teachers out of pure spite.”

The boy sighs and drinks in the room.

“When did you move out?”   
  
Milo cocks his head. Either when he was 18 or 19. He remembers his dad taking him to a pub for a celebratory drink for his independence. 

“I see…”

So the room was a time capsule for a teenage Milo. It certainly seemed that way. Water stains where flower pots once were were all over the room. There was a big corkboard with all sorts of information on it. It included workouts, how much water each plant needed and when they needed it, schedules for harvests long past, a collage of other grass type experts and cut outs from magazines with grass type information and interviews.    
There were some doodles of wooloo and the start of a knitted project before Milo assessed knitting wasn’t for him. The rest of the room felt empty, as everything else had gone with Milo or was thrown away. What caught Bede’s attention was a thin book that blended in with the small shelf it rested on. The rest of the shelf was empty, so Bede was curious what remnant of his past did Milo leave behind.

Oh! That’s my old photo album! Milo declared as Bede returned to the bed with the thin book. It was  _ very dusty _ and Bede would have to wash his hands once he was finished.

“May I see what’s inside?”

Milo nods. It was all photos from his gym challenge days and all his trainer accomplishments.

Bede opens the album and sees a child Milo, no older than thirteen, with six fully evolved grass types. “Oh, so this was you after you came home from your challenge?”

Milo shakes his head. No, this was just after he got his endorsement from Turffield’s mayor, and was about to go to Motostoke to register.

“What.”    
“Milo why do you have a team of fully evolved pokemon  _ before _ you even started?”

Well it was before gym battles outside of champions league were heavily broadcasted, so my mom thought I would have lost at the first gym if I didn’t train my pokemon enough.   
  
“Goodness gracious.” Looking at what Milo had around him, Bede could see a roserade, an eldegoss, a ludicolo, whimsicott, gourgeist and flapple. “Those poor early gyms...:”

The rest of the album had what one would expect from a child touring the whole of Galar. A photo near the end of Milo’s challenge caught Bede’s eye. Milo was wrapped in warm clothing, and for once didn’t have a single pokemon out in the photo. He stood next to an older woman, with spectacles that obscured her eyes and a scarf that obscured the rest of her face, the emblem on her jacket having the logo for the steel type gym leader. This couldn’t be anyone other than the steel minor league gym leader, Callie Burr.   
  
“How’d you get this photo? The only times she leaves her remote town is for the gym leaders league.”

Milo seemed embarrassed. He had got lost on the mountains beyond Circhester looking for route 10, ended up getting chased by beartic and wounded up meeting her.

“Oh.” Somehow that story was both interesting and anti-climatic.

Bede leafed through the album, photos of Milo’s pokemon growing old, memorials for them, new pokemon and ngffFFFF-

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” the wind was knocked out of Bede through his laughter. Milo cringed when he saw what photo Bede was laughing at.

“Milo…” Bede wheezed through laughter, “never grow a beard ever again.”   
Everyone knew Milo had a baby face, but the addition of an orangey pink beard only served to worsen the matter, the seventeen year old Milo looking like someone glued scraps of fur on the boy’s chin. Bede took out his phone and took a picture of the image. Bede would need this when times got tough and he needed a laugh.

  
  
  


Once everyone had settled in for the night, Milo couldn't help but feel restless. Bede had set up a small bed for him (as Bede warned Milo that he was a sleep kicker, and Milo was free to sleep on the bed if he didn’t mind the possibility of being launched at the wall at mach 10), and even though it was comfortable, sleep evaded the eldegoss. So Milo left the room, and from the hallway could see that a light was on in Lambert’s room.

The boy was in bed, flicking through an old book, his brows furrowed in focus. He notices the motion by the door and looks up when he sees that it’s the eldegoss.

“Oh, hi! I was uhm, researching.” The boy scrambles out of bed and sits by the eldegoss, pulling the book to a page showing a white eevee. Milo recalls seeing the drawing before in his long days spent reading the family books. This was the book they had on Galarian folklore.

“I uh. I know you’re not a real eldegoss, so I’ve been trying to see if I could find what you are in here.” He points to the white eevee. “My only real theory is that you’re a pooka or some kind of brownie. And I’m thinking you’re a pooka ‘cause of your white cotton, and I hope you’re a nice one and not an evil one.”

Lambert stands up and goes to his drawer, where he takes out a non-rotom phone. Milo realised that it was his phone.

“So uhm, fairies like gifts, right? I wanted to make sure you were a fairy so that I could make a deal with you.” Lambert lowered himself so that he was looking at the eldegoss at eye level, and offers him the phone. “If I give you this, will you help bring my brother back? Or at least promise me that Milo will make it home okay?”

There was a magical silence, as Lambert stares into the hazel eyes of the false eldegoss in front of him, as the eldegoss nods, and takes the phone from Lambert’s hand. Lambert smiles.

“I hope you have a nice night.”

  
  


That night, Nessa was interrupted from her binge watching from a message on her phone from Milo.

_ “Hi Nessa, I’m sorry I missed your phone calls. I’m in a situation right now where I can’t really talk to many people. Just know I’m okay and please tell everyone that as well. I know everyone is worried and I’m sorry. Please make sure my family gets this message, I didn’t get to tell them before I left.” _

Many more phones were lit up that night with messages of news on Milo’s condition. This news found its way to the o’ Yarrows an hour after Bede left the next morning.

Lambert looked out the window facing the direction where Bede and his fairy companion had gone, and silently thanked the fairy for what it must have done in order to get this news out.


	12. Understandings

Bede wanted to go to the cotton farm. Not to meet that woman Milo had a crush on or anything, he just wanted to see how fluffy it was. With Salsa on his head and Milo in his jacket, Bede took out a pokeball and released his rapidash, Foxtrot.

With ease, Bede jumps onto the unicorn’s back, and tells him to start trotting.

Milo was very impressed.

Very nicely done, but doesn’t it hurt not having a saddle to sit on?

Bede shakes his head. “Oh no, I’m used to this.”

Back during fairy type bootcamp, Opal insisted on horse riding lessons. It all had to do with the ‘aesthetics of the fairy type’ and ‘embracing the pink’, and what was more perfect than riding a unicorn? Of course, unicorns don’t wear saddles, and so Bede spent the first few lessons with a distressing pain between his legs, constantly falling off Foxtrot whether he was bucked off or if he slid off the side, and begging for the unicorn to step on him and end this once and for all.

Long story short, Bede is still alive and with rather strong thighs.

As Bede rode to where the cotton farm was, Milo was thinking about the owner. He was worrying about what he thought of Deirdre. Would he date her? Well… if she asked he wouldn’t say no, but perhaps he wasn’t at that point in his life where he was interested in asking for dates. But if he did date her, it would probably be a lovely time. She had a lovely sense of humour, was very straightforward and practical and enjoyed the quieter hours spent indoors.

Plus… if Milo had to think of her in another way, her body was lovely, round and soft, with lovely eyes and hair that was in a messy bun most of the time. She also had nice wide hips, something Milo could comfortably admit to himself he had a certain fondness for….

“Thanks Milo! I didn’t want to know any of that!” Bede said with a comically fake smile. Foxtrot neighed in agreement, even if he didn’t know what he was agreeing with. Milo picked up where he left off yesterday with the internal screaming.

A woman in a tracksuit raised her hand and waved to Bede, telling him to stop. She was wearing grass type branding, her eyes covered by sunglasses.

Milo told Bede not to stop, recognising the green hair and not wanting to risk it.

Bede ignored Milo and slowed down. “Can I help you?”

The woman nods, “That eldegoss you have there, he's actually mine and he escaped, could you give him back?”

Milo could definitely tell who it was now, and begged Bede to go, but Bede wasn’t listening, and instead felt spite.

“The fuck you think you are, telling someone to give you a pokemon?” Bede raised his left hand, and flips the woman off. “This is the only thing you’re getting from me!”

Fern scowled, and leapt onto Foxtrot and pulled at Bede’s jacket. Foxtrot reared upward, trying to buck the extra person off his back, Milo slipped out of Bede’s jacket, and Bede had to make a grab for Foxtrot’s mane in order to stay on and grip Milo so that he doesn’t fall. The unicorn yells and runs forward, causing Fern to fall to the ground in the dust behind them.

Bede told Foxtrot to keep running, rubbing the unicorns neck where he had pulled its hair, while clutching Milo into his chest. The rapidash galloped and jumped over a fence, into a forest. After they had covered some ground in the forest, Bede told Foxtrot to slow down, and Bede got off.

“Are you alright Milo?”

Milo wasn’t. He scowled at Bede.

What is your problem! I told you to go! Don’t you realise how dangerous she is? She has poison types Bede, that’s bad for _both_ of us.

Bede rolled his eyes and sat down. “Oh please, I’m a gym leader! I’ve fought in the champion’s league! I can handle a type disadvantage.”

He takes out Macarena’s pokeball and summons her. “See? Poison counter. Plus Foxtrot can’t be poisoned ‘cause of his ability.”

Milo didn’t want to do it, but he took a mouthful of Bede’s hair and tugged.

“Ow fuck! Milo that hurts.”

Stop ignoring me! Have you forgotten I can’t fend for myself? I can’t do this alone and I was nearly kidnapped. That woman is insane! She’s been stalking me and I don’t want to find out what would happen if she catches me.  
The eldegoss huffs

Bede I’m _scared_. I’m scared and I’ve been humiliated and I’ve had my privacy violated in so many ways, I can’t have the only hope I have left to take things lightheartedly.

He let go of Bede’s hair.

And I’m sorry I pulled your hair.

Bede was stunned. “Milo… do you know what this is? This is a growing moment!” He lightly applauds the cotton pokemon.

“You didn’t just let me get away with endangering you _and_ you just proved to me you could be assertive! I kinda realised maybe I pulled a dick move and uh…” Bede looked apologetic and pulled up his jacket’s collar,” yeah I… wow I did just endanger you just now…”

It took a moment, but the words fell out of Bede’s mouth. 

“Sorry.”

Milo leaned against Bede’s arm. 

It’s alright, I forgive you.

The two, with Foxtrot, Salsa and Macarena, just sat there recovering from the ordeal. Birds sang overhead, sunlight glittered through the leaves, and Bede couldn’t help but enjoy what the colour green had to offer.

“I think I get why you’re a grass type expert, Milo,”  
Milo looks at Bede.

“Its cause of things like this, isn’t it?”

“You’re not going to tournaments wanting to be the very best. Hell, you know better than anyone how much difficulty you have with most type matchups. You just want to share your love you have with images like this, right? How nice forests, fields and gardens are, right?”

Milo smiles.  
I’ve always thought gardening could fix any emotion.

Bede laughs. It was a soft chuckle, “I wouldn’t go _that_ far, but yeah. Is that why you chose to be the first gym leader? So you could introduce grass types to more people?”

Milo nods.  
That, and I know that I go easy on people. There are others that can show how strong grass types are, I just want to spread happiness. I used to want that myself, the lofty goal of being the champion. Of course even now it would still be nice, but I’ve grown, and I enjoy the happiness battles can bring over just wanting to win every time for the sake of it.

Bede closed his eyes. “I guess that works.” The boy slumps into the grass, his ears tickled by a few blades. “I used to train psychic types. Salsa was my starter. I used to devote myself to fighting, even if I had to throw the punches myself. But then… I don’t know, Opal took me in. At first I hated the hell she put me through, but I guess it just helped me realise I was practically a fairy type trainer all along. Apart from Salsa and my gothorita Tango, my pokemon were all fairy types too. At some point the eevee I had been raising evolved into a sylveon when I was planning on an espeon, and I think when that happened, I just kinda smiled to myself. Surprised even myself ‘cause I usually went ballistic over my own fuckups. I just took that as a sign that I really had changed.”

He points to Macarena. “She’s Opal’s pokemon though. She’s a little shit but at least she’s cute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to make fun of google docs for trying to correct my grammar. People do not have wide hips, they have *a* wide hips according to docs. A nice singular hips.


	13. The Thrill of The Pursuit

While they had taken a wild detour, Bede and Milo couldn’t help but think it was worth it. They arrived at the cotton farm and Bede got to see how fluffy its denizens were. Eldegoss and whimsicott, the two cotton pokemon found in Galar, ran around and played, inside a large enclosure similar to what Milo had: rock walls and strong mesh ceiling.

“This is  _ amazing _ . And they just are happy just sitting here under the mesh? They don’t escape or anything?”

Milo nods. Of course some of them want to escape, but most of them are just content to stand around since they get protection and food. Most farm pokemon are like that. But what’s fun is that eldegoss and whimsicott are raised in the exact opposite way wooloo are raised. These guys need to be evolved for their crop, so they’re encouraged to do play fights. Wooloo on the other hand need to be monitored to make sure they don’t fight and end up evolving. A dubwool is essentially a ruined harvest, since their wool is vastly different from a wooloo’s and doesn’t sell as well. Unless you know someone making knitted trampolines that dubwool can only really be used for guarding the wooloo.

“Fascinating. But how do you stop wooloo from fighting?”

You just pick them up. They’re very light.

Bede rolls his eyes. “ _ Sure _ , they’re ‘light’, huh?” Bede takes out his phone and looks at the pokedex. To his surprise, wooloo weigh on average 6 kilograms.

“Holy shit you weren’t kidding.  _ I  _ can pick up a wooloo.”   
Bede thinks.

“Actually, I think a wooloo is lighter than everything Opal made me move in the theater…”   
Bede scowled. And to think, he could have become a shepherd. Pick up wooloo. Not get body parts crushed being forced to ride a rapidash or have an allergic reaction to non-plastic cutlery.

“But wait, Milo, you’re built like a brick house, how do you get like that if all you’re doing is picking up sheep lighter than an  _ eevee _ ?”

Well there’s other things to do around the farm. I actually help out around the town so I do a lot of odd jobs that mostly require lifting up and pushing stuff. Plus I actually exercise and stuff so there’s that.

Milo cocks his head to the side. I’m trying to think, I remember some people approaching me about how much I’m able to carry and all that. Think it was for league cards. I forget how much I could pick up but I’m sure there was something about me pushing a roll of hay onto a scale and that was 350 kilograms-

“Milo holy  _ shit _ .”

It’s not that heavy though! You’re just pushing it and they roll easily!

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that…”

It was midday when Bede stopped by a cafe at Milo’s request. He wanted food, and he specifically wanted the pancakes this cafe made. Bede watched as the pokemon wolfed down the treat.

Aren’t you getting anything for yourself?

Bede patted his stomach, “I wasn’t kidding about the whole not eating for a month thing. I’m not at all hungry.”

So you’ve really not had that much food before?

“Never. I don’t eat much. When I used to get soup kitchen food, the bowls were this big.” Bede then cupped his hands together.

Milo felt sorry for Bede, but also very curious about why Bede used to go to soup kitchens, before realising he was caught red handed about his nosy desires.

“Ugh, I’ve got over being ashamed of it. I was an orphan. Well, I guess I still  _ count _ as an orphan, but I’m not stuck in a shitty facility in the slums anymore.”

I’m sorry.

“Not your fault. Never really knew my parents. I used to hope that they were alive and were coming back for me, but of course that never really happened. The raw fury I used to have because I thought my parents abandoned me pushed me to be an angry aggressive kid.”   
  
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Here’s your bill.”

Bede jumped when the waitress spoke up, placing a piece of paper in front of him. It took a bit to get the curly haired boy to stop hiding in his jacket, but he had a remark once his head popped out.

“Sheesh, can’t have a one sided conversation revealing my tragic past to my eldegoss in peace here can I?”

Milo looked at Bede.

“It was a joke. That waitress scared the shit out of me.”

Once they were done with the pancakes, the boys left the cafe. To their horror, Fern was there.

“Hello,” she said, a creepy smile on her face.

Bede tried to run, but Fern stepped in front of him, causing both people to pause as their minds react to the collision that didn’t happen. Bede ran to the left, Fern sidestepped in front of him. Bede ran to the right, Fern was there.

Bede then shoved Fern, which caught the woman off guard and allowed Bede to escape. The boy headed down route 5 and didn’t think to get Foxtrot, as the woman was on Bede’s tail whenever he looked, and there was no time to get on a horse.

Bede starts to wheeze, his body not used to spriting for this long, and the boy was relieved to see that he had lost Fern.

That was too close, Milo remarked.

“Damn right. I’m taking out Foxtrot and I’m putting awa Salsa incase she tries to attack him.”

Milo nodded, as their form of communication was put in a pokeball, and Foxtrot was taken out.

“Hey boy…” Bede said, climbing on the horse. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go, but it seemed like destiny had an idea, as Bede hears a bike bell ring behind him.

He turns around and  _ Fuck _ its Fern again on a bicycle.

“Foxtrot go!” The unicorn rushed down the road. The woman on her bike slid in front of Bede again, causing Foxtrot to rear upwards.

“Oh for fuck sake! I’m not doing this again, Foxtrot turn around!”

The horse does a 180, its legs kicking the ground and he gallops back into Turffield. The woman gives chase, terrifyingly close no matter how fast Foxtrot galloped, as Bede could never seem to lose sight of her.

The chase followed the river in Turffield, and soon the ground became rockier as they got to the mountainous route 6. Unable to climb up the cliffs, Bede would have to go through Hammerlocke. But Bede faltered for too long, and the stalker caught up.

“Oh god. Wait. Why am I  _ freaking out _ ? I’m a gym leader!”

Bede takes out one of his pokemon, his stressed mind grabbing his gardevoir’s ball.

“Waltz, use-”   
“Poison jab!” A croagunk decked the gardevoir in the face as she appeared, knocking her out instantly.

“ _ Poison types _ \- Running!”

Bede clutched to Foxtrot’s neck, and for a moment wondered why Milo didn’t remind the fairy type trainer that his stalker used poison types, before remembering Salsa was in his ball. Bede couldn’t help but miss having the older man’s voice in his head, especially in this trying time.

Foxtrot gallops through to Hammerlocke, before slowing down to a walk. The unicorn needed to catch his breath. Bede strokes Foxtrot’s mane, and while he had some time before that crazy bitch popped up again (and Bede had a feeling she would), he needed to have Macarena ready to pop out. Bede’s hand was shaking, adrenaline not letting any part of Bede be still. From how Milo had pressed himself into Bede’s chest, he was also afraid.

“It’s alright Milo, I’ll protect you.” Bede said softly. 

Foxtrot takes the boys through the main road, and Bede had mixed feelings about it. There was Macro Cosmo’s office aaand that’s enough poking that hornets nest. Look. Brick path.

The journey through was confusingly short. Bede’s hand ached as he clinged to Macarena’s ball, and then… they were out of Hammerlocke. Fern was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t like this. It’s been a few hours and she hasn’t popped up. You don’t think we’ve lost her, do you Milo?”

“Goss.” Milo said. He was still tense. Bede nods. “Yeah. My legs are hurting though.” He climbs down from Foxtrot, his legs complaining from the movement and from standing.

“Oof- I think I’ll walk for a bit, thank you Foxtrot.” The rapidash bows his head and Bede returns him to his pokeball.

Bede walks down the path, walking past bits on the environment littered in bickering cat pokemon and the sign that read Route 7. He’d never gone this way before, and could see how much of the land was actually wild area. It would probably be nice to camp here, if you liked that sort of thing. Camping wasn’t fun when all it did was remind you of your dirty room you shared with four other children, and you hoped every time it rained that the leak in the roof didn’t get worse.

Milo was still afraid Fern would show up at any second. He didn’t like this situation, it felt like he and Bede were prey, being herded, forced where she wants them.

Actually… that’s exactly what was happening, wasn’t it? Milo pulled at Bede’s jacket, trying to get his attention.  _ Please,  _ Bede, get Salsa out, I think we’re being led into a trap.

“Ahem,” came from behind the boys. Fern stood there with her croagunk on her shoulder. Her hair had fallen from their plaits and was swaying in the gentle breeze.

Bede said nothing, and was about to release Macarena as the ball slips from his nervous hand. His chest grew cold at his mistake, but it was only the beginning, as the croagunk wasn’t Bede’s opponent, but rather the haunter that snuck behind him. 

The boy felt the cold inside him getting worse as a frigid tongue licked up his back, passing though his layers of clothing. Bede’s words died in his throat, and he shook as the cold took over. He looks over his shoulder to see his attacker, and that was all Fern needed. The last thing Bede recalls before collapsing was the feel of agonising pain as the croagunk jabs Bede in the neck, poison spreading fast until he blacked out.

  
  


Bede woke up in a hospital bed. It was super quiet, as the evening brought a blue silence. Based on what Bede could hear, he was in a medbay in a pokemon centre, a room converted into a hospital room just for him, and he could hear the chitchat of people getting their pokemon healed from the machine in the front of the centre. Bede pulls down his blanket and squeaks as he feels the drip that had been inserted into his left hand. The boy wasn’t one to feel squeamish at such a sight, but having his dominant hand rendered into a stiff receptacle for needles and pipes, held down with a sticker that had turned red with leaked blood wasn’t doing him favours.

“Indeedee!” came a cheerful voice, and Bede’s right hand was now being held by an indeedee, her soft beans squished against Bede’s palm, and she looked at him with kind, understanding eyes.

“Where am I?” 

His eyes go wide and he sits up.

“Where’s Milo? Milo!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Galarian geography confuses me because I try to make it seem like a proper country with normalish distances and travel times but my brain *knows* that this country is 5 cms in length so I am struggling.


	14. Exchanging Hands in Redhillshire

The headquarters for the minor division was the old stadium in Redhillshire. Because of a lack of galar particles, no dynamaxing could happen in the stadium, and soon it was no longer a popular place to host battles.

It was perfect for the minor division, as they too were unpopular and inferior to the bigger and better major division. Before the gym leader’s league, the minor division organised the week before the event to be in Redhillshire to train together. They stayed in the nearby inns for the nights, though a good few hit up the local pubs for socialising or alcohol.

Espoonzo was not one of them. The psychic type leader spent his nights doing personal training, meditations in the dark. He usually trained in the Glimwood Tangle, meditating among the hattrem to achieve true serenity. He devoted himself to it, the perfection of no emotions. It is during his meditations that he becomes a void of existence, invisible to empath and telepath pokemon. Hattrem would ignore Espoonzo, not actually realising he was even there. He takes a deep breath, his body a vessel of the void, at least until there was a knock at the door. The man turns on the light and opens the door.

There was a woman in a tracksuit, clutching a tog bag to her side.

Espoonzo was a gaunt man with short blond hair that could remind someone of blaziken spikes, with the only exceptions being two long strands in front of his ears. He was clean shaven to a fault, as he had no eyebrows. Bran, the flying type leader as well as Gordie the rock type leader liked to joke that Espoonzo got slapped so hard by a hatterene that his eyebrows fell off. Espoonzo also only had one expression: Neutral sternness.

That is why Fern felt intimidated, as the man silently invites her inside.

“Right, I brought Milo with me, now will you tell me how to make him human again?”

Through eavesdropping on Bede in Turffield, Fern found out what had happened to her beloved object of desire, dismayed at his current non-hunky form. It had taken a day to find out what to do, as she contacted the psychic gym leader for help. The man told her to arrive at night so nobody could see the business to be done.

Espoonzo invited Fern to sit, to put the tog bag on the table. Espoonzo’s pokemon wandered in. An espurr, a male indeedee and a beheeyem. The little alien floats to be at Espoonzo’s shoulder. The lights on the beheeyem’s fingers lit up. The alien was staring at Fern.

“Yes. I did consider this interesting when you called.” Espoonzo said. His voice was monotone, emotionless.

He puts his hand over the bag, and inhales. Training certain pokemon types came with side effects: Ghost trainers grew sickly as their pokemon absorbed their life essence, fairy trainers developed odd behaviours, their eyes glazed over and they ended up mentally trapped in strange worlds only they could understand. Psychic types, however, opened up the mind to the mental arts. Telepathy, premonition and telekinesis became possible with enough hard work and connection with pokemon.

Espoonzo could read the minds of pokemon, from the simple minded to the complex, and it stood to reason, by that logic, if there was no  _ true _ pokemon in this bag, he would pick up nothing.

Silence.

She was telling the truth.

“Interesting indeed,” Espoonzo said. He focuses on Fern.

“Unfortunately, I cannot help you. I intend on taking advantage of the situation lay before me.”

Fern scowled. “What do you mean by that?” She tenses up, her hand going to a pokeball on her hip. She now realises she was a poison trainer surrounded by psychic types.

“I’m going to need you to forget about this situation and leave.” Espoonzo said.

“As if!”

“Very well.” Espoonzo said. The alien, understanding a small cue given by Espoonzo’s hands, raises its hand, and suddenly Fern stood still. Beheeyem could alter memories and with training, a trainer could take advantage of this.

“You will not remember Milo at all. You are in Redhillshire to watch the minor division training.” Espoonzo said.

“Yes.” Fern said weakly. Espoonzo escorted the woman outside, keeping the tog bag and the pokemon inside.

  
  


Fern must have dissociated at some point, as she found herself standing in a hallway wearing her incognito clothing. This wouldn’t do at all. She didn’t need to be in disguise, she was here to surprise her friend Bran! The flying type gym leader was stressing over gym leader’s league, so surely she could give him a pick me up, and hey, since shes here she may as well watch the training.

  
  


Milo had been terrified when Bede collapsed, the eldegoss going down with the boy, helpless as the woman approached just to take him. Milo spent god knows how long in a bag, struggling, passing out, and at some point he got fed laced food and was knocked out from it.

He comes to when fresh air kisses his face, and the stern expression of Espoonzo greeted him. How did Espoonzo find him? Oh! He must have rescued Milo from that Fern woman!

Milo smiles at Espoonzo, grateful for his rescue, and sees that he is in some part of a stadium. Milo knew where the minor division trained, so was he in Redhillshire?

“Milo.” Espoonzo said. Milo got a fright and flinched. How did Espoonzo know his identity?

“Goss?”

The hairless brows on Espoonzo twitched, his expression darkening for only a split second before it was back to normal.

“You are the reason why I have never been in the major division since my defeat by your hand.” Espoonzo said.

“It is only fair my revenge should be as painful as a herd of angry hattrem.” Espoonzo said. He lifts up Milo, and the eldegoss could see that all of Espoonzo’s pokemon were staring at him. An espurr, an indeedee, a beheeyem, espeon and a musharna.

“Mitsi.” Espoonzo said. The espurr stepped closer.

“Show this eldegoss your power.” Espoonzo said.

Milo felt an intense pain in his head, hearing a sound that was pure pressure, and he was launched into the air. As he slowly falls, his leaves catching the wind, the five pokemon form a circle around Milo’s shadow.

“It is time for a game. Do what you must, my team.  _ Do not let him touch the ground _ .” Espoonzo said.

The five psychic pokemon teamed up, shooting blasts of energy at Milo, with all the intent of launching him skywards for as long as possible.

As this was happening, Espoonzo’s face turned dark, and his voice calm with restrained malice.

“Ever since you made me drop from major division, I’ve lost my sponsorships, my funding and most of my dignity. My meditations were ruined for days, as my seething anger brought hattrem to me, thirsty to quell the very rage of my soul. My bruises may have healed, my bones reformed, but I am not the same man as before. There is no compassion to be felt for you, only the rage only silence can bring.” Espoonzo said.

“And then, that women came to me like a fly to honey, and I was as close to surprised as I could be, finding what had befallen you. I was going to steal your place in majors, but now.  _ Now! _ I can make you suffer until you wish for nothing than death!” Espoonzo said.

Espoonzo raised his hand up. “Make him suffer, my dears!” Espoonzo said.

The man then turns around and walks out of the training room. This would take a while. He could have tea.

Gordie was showing off his new skiddo leather shoes (“Imported from Kalos!”) to anyone willing to look when he hears a loud wailing coming from one of the training rooms. He runs into the room along with a confused league official, only to find Espoonzo’s psychic types playing ball. The rock type trainer’s gut churned as the espeon hits the ball, and it wails again, even louder.

“Shit that’s a pokemon!”

Running on the just need to protect the bullied pokemon, Gordie dashed towards the circle, did a leap, caught the pokemon with a protective grip and completed his flip. He glares at the psychics, covering the injured pokemon from any more attacks.

“What’s wrong with all of yer? Can yer not see this is a pokemon? Despicable is what you lot are! I’ll give Espoonzo a piece of my mind!”

Gordie stepped away from the bully pokemon as the league official approached to investigate the victim.

It was an eldegoss. Tears streamed down its face and one of its eyes was swollen shut. It looked like all its cotton had been ripped or sliced off and its leaves had seen better days. 

The league official touched one of the pokemon’s leaf legs, significantly crumpled and damaged, and the thing started to wail again. Gordie instinctively pulled the pokemon away from the woman, pulling the eldegoss to his chest.

“H-hey little buddy, it’s okay, you’re safe with me.” Gordie said, petting what remained of the pokemon’s cotton. He gives the poor baby a reassuring smile. Gordie would protect this eldegoss, that was his choice now.

A trip to the pokemon centre proved conflicting. The pokemon couldn’t be captured and thus couldn’t be healed with the machine, so instead Gordie was given medicine and painkillers for the eldegoss. Also....

Gordie’s new shoes got scuffed. The soft leather didn’t last long, and these were imported Kalosian make! That shit’s expensive! But still, it was a worthy sacrifice, a pair of scuffed shoes being better than a killed pokemon.

“Ye know, you remind me of Milo, ye do. Big strong guy, likes grass types, and his catchphrase is about being tough as weeds. How about I name ye Milo! If there’s anyone worthy of the name, its you!” Gordie says to his new friend.

Milo seemed bewildered at his new name, or maybe he was high on whatever goodshit they gave him in the centre, or both!

Gordie chuckles as he heads back to the stadium. “I still gotta train so we’ll be here for a while, but don’t you worry, I’m going to treat ye to however much food ye want after I’m done. Sound good?”   
“Goss…”

Gordie chuckles. “Boy you are out of it, Milo, you’re just pure painkiller at this point aren’t ye?”

The man heads into a room where his pokemon were waiting, and lots of mats had been placed.   
  
“My babies! Sorry for taking so long, I had an emergency with this here tough guy! Poor thing was getting wailed on by Espoonzo’s lot and needed to be treated stat. Oh but look at all of you!”

Gordie had the biggest smile on his face. “You guys are so good!”   
Gordie places Milo on a bench and goes to hug his stonjourner.    
“Hengie! Hengie-wengie my good boy! Are you ready to do your thing!”

Hengie made rock noises.

“Yeah thats what I’m talking about! You are gonna  _ blow _ this outta the water! Now give me a rock tomb!”

The stonjourner then falls onto the mat in front of it.

Gordie whooped. “Yes! Yes! That’s the sort of rock tomb I love!"

When the stonjourner stands up again, Gordie has his arms around its leg.

"You did such a good job Hengie!" The man then pats the stone to emphasise his next point." Such! A! Good! Boy!"

He then gives Hengie a gentle kiss-kiss, a 'mwah' any pet owner would be proud of.

"I didn't know this was the type of training you did Gordie."

Gordie turns around to see Bran at the door, the dark haired man with a wide grin.

"Oh wouldn't you like to know," Gordie said, his voice losing enthusiasm as his flying type rival intruded.

"Train however you want. I just want to see that little guy you saved. I heard something about- oh is that him? Oh no poor guy. What happened?"

Gordie comes over to the grass type. "Yeah, this is Milo. Poor thing must have flown by a window and got wailed on by Espoonzo's team."

The high flier frowned. "Do you know where Espoonzo is?"

"No clue, I've just came back from the centre."

"Right. I'm going to have a chat with him."

"Good luck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was cursed. I had to rewrite the introduction three times because I had to change the idea to make the most sense. The typex kept flaking too so I had a rough time deciphering some words when it came to typing this chapter up :"D  
> Also Gordie is a gymnast, you can't change my mind.  
> Oh and Bran is my friend Bunny's oc she made to help babysit Milostan Fern and prevent what just occured.


	15. Things Bede Doesn’t Tell People Until Someone’s Life Is In Danger And He’s Dying Himself

Bede had worried himself sick. That, or a combination of venom and curse in his body made him retch before his intense stress could do it. Milo was gone and Bede was beating himself up for letting him be captured. All of Bede’s pokemon were accounted for, so at least that meant Bede wasn’t robbed. Great. Bede keeps on insisting to the nurse and the indeedee that he was fine and he needs to go, but usually at that point his legs wobble and he needs to sit back down.

Breathing heavily, Bede returns to his bed and takes out his phone. He had been informed that he was in Spikemuth, though he kinda clued that together when the nurse of the centre wore a studded leather jacket under her apron and her hair was a finely kept mohawk. Bede begrudgingly came to the conclusion that he was going to need help, for both him and Milo.

_ “Hello? Marnie speaking!” _

“Hi Marnie…” Bede said.

_ “Oh! Bede is that you? Your voice sounds awful.” _ _   
_ “I know… I need your help… I’m in Spikemuth’s pokemon centre and the nurse won’t let me out and I have urgent business. As in someone’s  _ life _ is on the line. Can you spring me out? I’ll explain what’s going on.”

_ “A-alright. Comin’.” _

It took a bit to convince the nurse that Bede could leave, the fairy-type user trembling like a leaf the whole time. But once that was done, Bede was escorted to Marnie’s apartment.

“Alright, so wha’ happen to you?”

“Well, to put it shortly,” Bede explained,” I found out through some lucky bullshit that Milo turned into an eldegoss and that’s why he was reported missing. The two of us were working on how to undo the curse when we got ambushed by Milo’s stalker, and well, I got poisoned and cursed by that crazy bitch’s pokemon and I’ve been worrying myself ragged over Milo because that stalker now has him and who knows what depraved things she’s going to do to him.”

Marnie blinks, and her eyebrows sink into a frown. Oh great here we go-

“Are you pullin’ my leg Bede? Was this some sorta joke you felt like tellin’?”

Bede clenches his fists, and in a rare occasion, actually  _ lowers _ his jacket collar.

Marnie gasps.

“Does this look like something I’d fucking joke about Marnie?”

Where Fern’s croagunk had hit Bede, there was now a large purple… was it even a bruise? It looked kinda like a bruise, but it also looked like an allergic reaction with how the skin had turned all puffy, similar to what happens to fairy type pokemon when in contact with a super effective element. Overall: This was not normal.

“What the fuck is wron’ wit’ your-”

“That isn’t the point!” Bede yells, pulling his collar back up to cover his wound. “I got attacked, I’m now sick, and Milo is in danger!” Bede breathed in. He felt like he was going to hurl and Marnie was concerned for him.

“So… will you help me?”   
  
Marnie looks at Bede, her face not showing any emotion, and she nods.

“I’ll help but… If Milo was kidnapped, where would he be taken to?”   
Bede shakes his head. “I have no fuckling clue, that’s why I need someone to help me.” Bede’s next thought was interrupted, as his stomach growls. The curly haired boy turns scarlet, and pulls up his collar even higher. Throwing up meant losing any and all food one had, and even if Bede was going to survive a month on the o’ Yarrow dinner, he couldn’t if he couldn’t keep it where it belongs.

Marnie’s face turned red in sympathy for Bede.

“How about we think of a plan over lunch?”   
“That would be great thank you.”

Bede passionately stuffed slices of toast into his mouth, as Marnie just had a simple sandwich. The little Spikemuth cafe was empty outside of the two gym leaders.

“Were you starvin’ or somethin’? I’ve never seen anyone eat toast like you right now.”

“I haven’t eaten in like two days. Most of what I’ve had doesn’t stick around for long.”   
“Oh…”

Marnie takes out her phone to check Chatter. The website with its blue chatot logo was a literal cesspool hellzone of the internet’s worse, but sometimes there was a funny meme or two.   
“Anyway,” Bede said, finishing the last of the toast, “I think I’m good for now. Now we need to focus and figure out where Milo could be.”   
“Redhillshire.”   
“Wha-?”

Marnie shows Bede her phone. It was a chatter post from Gordie. He had taken a selfie with a banged up eldegoss, the cotton pokemon’s one eye patched over and one of its leaves was in a splint.

_ “Whats up everyone! I have a new friend  _ 🍃 _ and he is one  _ 👏 _ tough _ 👏 _ guy _ 👏 _ Rescued him and he's a-okay  _ 💪 _ His name is Milo and you're gonna be rocked shocked by how cute he can be  _ 😤

_ (But for now he's a lil sleepy 💤 )” _

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.” Bede said. “I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that Gordie named Milo Milo, or the fact that I know that’s Milo because this is  _ so _ convenient it flies right out of red herring territory right into  _ punchline of a joke that is part of my life’s comedy routine _ territory.”   
“Bede do you overreact like this a lot?”

“...”   
“...”   
“...Maybe. I’m an actor it's needed.”   
“Right.”

The two paid for the bill and headed to a corviknight taxi point. Bede needed to be helped in as his legs decided to be weak and wobbly again, and the two new gym leaders were in the air, heading for Redhillshire.

“So… How’s Piers? I didn’t see him when we were walking around.”   
“Oh! He’s in Unova right now. He got invited to this Pokemon World Tournament thing there and has been having a great time.”   
“Oh that’s good.”   
“Yeah. He met this guy called heartbreaker Charles and they’ve been doing collab jams in Driftveil.”   
“Where’s Driftveil?”   
“Uhm… its north of Castelia I think. It’s where the Pokemon World Tournament is held.”   
“Ah.”   
“Yeah.”   
  


Marnie taps her fingers on the side of the car, before deciding to break the silence and pop the question that’s been on her mind for a while.

“Bede?”

“Yeah?”

“Now will you tell me what the fuck is wron’ wit’ your neck?”

“Uhggggggghhffine. Only ‘cause I can tell you’re not going to drop it.”   
The boy takes a deep breath.

“So one night Opal woke me up and told me to come with her to Glimwood Tangle. I agreed because I was still in bootcamp hell and I had just accepted doing weird shit was part of the grand plan. The old bat had me walk to some strange part of the forest where the moon shone. Not through the trees, it was just floating there, glowing ominously. Like I said, I accepted doing weird shit and Opal made me bow to five tree stumps and she called them the fairy council, and next thing I know I’m in my shitty apartment again and it’s morning.”

  
“My wrist felt super itchy and I'll come back to that but I ended up picking up scissors and for some goddamn reason I touched the metal blades and I had this huge allergic reaction. I figured Opal must have pulled some bullshit on me to simulate being a fairy type and I confronted her about it and she had no idea what I was talking about and said I must have had allergies beforehand that I didn’t notice before. So I decided I would fucking show her I had some bullshit on me by eating some poisonous berries but before I did it I realised “Oh wait! This is fucking stupid!” and that's how I didn’t die in the forest. But yeah, for some reason I’m a fairy type human now.”

Bede was quiet for a beat, but before Marnie could respond to any of Bede’s batshit crazy tale, he speaks again.

“Also I can pull an infinite amount of ribbon from my right sleeve.”

He proceeds to do so, pulling a thin blue ribbon from his sleeve, and Marnie could only watch as the boy pulls out at least 3 metres of the stuff to prove his point before stopping.

“It changes every time and whenever I pull my sleeve down the ribbon just ends, like ‘oh I was about to end anyway.’”

Marnie blinks, expecting Bede to do more magic. He doesn’t so she speaks up.

“So… you’re magic? Y-you can do magic?”   
“I don’t call it magic. Magic makes it sound worth respecting. It’s bullshit.”   
“Right…. So you can do bullshit?”   
“Yes”   
“Mhm…” Marnie decides she could be cool about this. About Bede being magical and she’s now on a magical mission to save a magically cursed Milo and oh my  _ god _ magic is real.

  
  
  


Marnie lasted a minute.

The car was then full of “oh my god magic is real,” insistence that Bede pull more ribbons from his sleeve, that she kept the maroon one he made, and thoughts about type matchups.

“Wait so if I bite you-”   
“You are  _ not _ biting me!”

“Okay fine. But what if I punched you-”   
“No!”

“Well uh, what if I pretend my hand is like a spider? My pokemon hate it when I do it.”   
Bede glared at Marnie, his hands full of ribbons.

“I don’t know. Prolly look stupid.”   
  
Marnie made her hand spider-like, and made her hand creep up Bede’s arm.

“Is there a point to this?”   
“I dunno, I figured you may resist it but I guess it doesn’t really count as an attack does it?”

“No. It’s more like flirting if you ask me.”   
  
Marnie went red, and kept quiet and kept her hands to herself after that remark. Bede grins, relishing in the peace.    
  
They arrived at Redhillshire after that, Bede chucking away all the ribbons in a bin.

“So where on earth should we start looking?”   
“I’d say we head to the stadium and phone Gordie if we can’t find ‘em.”

“Let’s go then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I don't like Marnie, shes bland, her name freaks me out, I have no idea how to write her.  
> Also me: Writes her in as a main character anyway
> 
> Also I saw an italicised emoji and it was cursed.


	16. Memories Of Milo

Espoonzo had no emotion as Bran confronted him, appalled at his pokemon’s actions.

“How can you leave your pokemon unattended if they are willing to attack a wild pokemon like that?”   
“It is unfortunate, yes. I did not think they would do that.” Espoonzo said. He sips his tea. “I must be off then, I must discipline my team.” Espoonzo said, leaving his teacup on the table.

Bran scowls and shakes his head when Espoonzo walked past, and the raven haired man desired oh so much to deck the psychic chicken for what his pokemon did.

He is interrupted by a woman with green hair and red eyes, not dressed suspiciously for once.

“Bran heyyy!”   
“Fern what are you doing here? I thought you were camping?”

Fern shakes her head. “Oh no, I came here to visit you and watch everyone train!”   
Bran squints.

“Fern how did you get access to get in here?”   
“...”   
“ _ Fern _ .”

Espoonzo was walking quickly, his pokemon in their balls aside from his beheeyem. He needed to do some memory manipulation and quick.

He opens the door to where Gordie was training, the man focussing on his own gymnastic feats then his pokemon at the moment.

Milo started to yell to Gordie.   
“Gossie! Eelf!”

The blond man, mid-handstand, came right side up and fixed his hair.

“What do ye want Espoonzo? You’re making Milo upset.”

In a rare twist of fate, Espoonzo’s eyes widened in shock, the first emotion he has ever shown in a year. How did this rocks for brains realise who the eldegoss was? It was all the more important Gordie forgot  _ now _ .

Espoonzo nodded to the beheeyem, and now Gordie froze, staring at the lights on the alien’s hands.

“You are to forget Milo existed.” Espoonzo said, picking up the damaged goss and covering its mouth.

“Yes,” Gordie said weakly. Espoonzo quickly ran away. He couldn’t dispose of Milo now, he needed to hide him somewhere.

The man sneaks to the top floor of the stadium, and finds a broom closet. Perfectly remote. Espoonzo chucks Milo inside, the eldegoss slamming into a shelf. Espoonzo locks the door and takes the key with him. He needed to formulate a plan and  _ fast _ .

Bede and Marnie were let into the stadium after a bit of begging, the receptionist only letting them past because they themselves were gym leaders. The two, still being new to the wonderful labyrinth that was stadium offices, found themselves bursting into training sessions. Allister, Ataxia and Callie Burr looked up at the two before they apologised and went on to the next office.

The two trainers soon found Bran, politely escorting out Fern.

“You!” Yelled Bede, pointing at the woman before he falters, his words loud enough to leave him out of breath.

Fern looked confused. “Me?”   
Bran squinted. “Her?”   
Marnie glanced around. “Uhm.” She looked at Bede, hoping he would recover his breath.

“Yes… you...What have you done with Milo?”   
“Milo? Fern what is he talking about?”

“Milo? Never heard of him.”   
“Okay that’s  _ bullshit _ you crazy bitch-”

“Hey language! Fern what do you mean you don’t know who Milo is? He’s been your obsession for years you can’t lie to me.”   
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about! Who is Milo?”   
“Oh for fuck sake you kidnapped him and sicked your pokemon on me!”

“Fern! Is this true?”   
“No! I don’t remember doing that. I’ll have you know I haven’t committed a crime in three months and even then breaking that farmer’s fence was an  _ accident _ . And who is this Milo guy you guys are yelling at me about?”

Bran holds out his finger, and Marnie catches Bede before he falls over.

“Fern what do you mean you don’t know who Milo is?”   
“I say what I mean! I don’t know who Milo is and I have no recollection attacking this guy, honest.”   
Bran’s brows furrow. “Fern give me your phone.”

Fern unlocks her phone and hands it to Bran. Bran opened the photo gallery and selected Fern’s most recent picture of the strong farmer.

“Do you not remember taking this?”   
Fern’s eyes popped out of her head, an ‘AWOOGA’ sound been perfect for the moment.

“No but  _ who _ is that.” Her face turned into a hungry grin, looking at the snack on her screen.

“Ugh. Fern, this is Milo. Did you get amnesia or something? Do you really not recall taking these pictures?”

_ “Wait Bede is this the stalker you mentioned?” _

“...Yes. Keep up Marnie. Wait. So you  _ don’t _ remember fucking chasing me around Galar and having your haunter and croagunk hit me?”

“No? Those are my pokemon though. But why are you in such bad shape? If Cyanide and Arsenic attacked you you’ll be like, paralysed but that’s easily healed… I know from experience.”   
“I’m allergic, but that’s beside the point. You took Milo, where is he?”

Fern was distraught. “I… I don’t know? Look apparently I’ve had my memories erased cause I don’t know who Milo is and I don’t remember attacking you.” 

She slumps.

“Plus I’ve been in Redhillshire since yesterday, and I’m not exactly hauling around a body bag, am I?”

Marnie smiles. “Maybe this is more magic-er-bullshit!”

“Bullshit is right. Besides, we know Gordie has him, so we should hunt down his ass first.”

“Wait. Are we talking about a human or a pokemon here?” Bran asked, as his rival is brought up.

“Yes.” Bede said.   
“...Which is it?” Bran said, confused.

“It’s a long story and I don’t give a fuck if you’re confused but Milo is an eldegoss now.”   
  
Bran looks at Marnie, confused. Marnie returns the look, nodding to confirm that yes, this was what was said and yes, it’s real.

“Well… okay then… I know where Gordie is training at least… so we can ask him about the eldegoss he has…”   
  


The four head to Gordie’s training room, and are dismayed to find Gordie and Milo not inside.

“Coal?” Beeped Gordie’s Coalossal.   
“Okay, so he’s not here then…” Bran frowned.

Marnie spoke up.

“Why don’t we split up? Maybe we can find Gordie and Milo that way?”   
“Sound’s good to me. I have to meet my future husband afterall.”

“Fern  _ no _ .”   
“Ugh, I don’t want to hear more of this bitch talk, I’m going to find Milo” and Bede stormed off down a hall.

  
  


_ Think Espoonzo Think _ , how can we make Milo disappear?

Espoonzo’z thoughts were interrupted by a kid in pink with a wooloo for a head, resting against a wall and catching his breath. When the kid sees Espoonzo his eyes go wide and he smiles.

“ _ Gasp _ , Espoonzo!”   
“That is me,” Espoonzo said.   
“I’m a huge fan of yours! Your advice on psychic types helped me out when I was first starting out training!”

“Fascinating,” Espoonzo said.

Bede wheezes.

“Are you alright?” Espoonzo said.

“Not at all but you can help.”   
“How so?” Espoonzo said.

“I’m looking for either Gordie or an eldegoss.”   
_ Fuck _ . “Why?” Espoonzo said.

“Well it’s a long story but pretty much Milo is cursed as an eldegoss and unless I get him back and help him he’ll be stuck as an eldegoss forever.”

A bead of sweat forms on Espoonzo’s head. He had put away his beheeyem and taking him out now will only rouse suspicions, especially if this kid knows about what his pokemon can do. What can he do? What can he do?   
Oh.   
That’s a good idea.   
“I know where Milo is,” Espoonzo said.   
“You do? Great, thank you, can you please help show me? I’m uhhh, recovering from allergies.”   
“With pleasure,” Espoonzo said.

The man then leads Bede upstairs.

“How did you find out about Milo’s curse?” Espoonzo said.   
“Oh, well, long story short, I trained my duosion to do this cool thing where its one brain reads a mind, and the other brain sends the thoughts to my head. It only really works on people though, but yeah, I could talk to Milo that way and we figured out what had happened to him.”   


“Interesting but incorrect.” Espoonzo said.

“Whaddaya mean?”   
“No pokemon can do what you just said. Even if Duosion could do it, it’s two brains would get sidetracked and think of different things. At best if it could work, you’d maybe read some thoughts before one of its mind forgets what it was doing. I am assuming you train multiple psychic types, so it is possible you have developed telepathy, but you only think to use it when you have your duosion with you.” Espoonzo said. Horrible monster or not, the psychic type leader wasn’t about to let someone off the hook with the wrong idea on psychic types.

Bede was silent as the two men walk up the last stairs. Espoonzo picks up a metal display ornament of a boltund and hides it behind his back.

“So… I’m psychic?”   
“Likely. There is one way to find out. If you take a deep breath, can you hear what I’m thinking now?” Espoonzo said. I am going to kill you.

The two keep walking, and Bede takes a deep breath. His eyes fly open, and he steps away from Espoonzo. Bede’s legs trembled, and he knew he couldn’t run away. Bede was about to scream for help, but the ornament connects with Bede’s head before the words can escape. Bede’s lifeless body crumples, and Espoonzo drags it into the broom closet. He locks the door again and walks off. He’ll be back later when the coast was clear to dispose the bodies.


	17. Sleuthing for Clues

Milo woke up in a dark room, and recalls how Espoonzo threw him in there. The painkillers he had taken wore off, and his entire body ached in pain. The cold hard floor wasn’t doing him any favours, the icy chill biting into the pokemon’s injured leaves. There was a small window at the very top of the room, likely to ensure that the place is somewhat ventilated, and it showered the room in the last light of the day. How long had Milo been knocked out?

As Milo’s eyes adjusted, he sees that the cleaning supplies had fallen on the floor to make a big mess. It kinda looked like Bede was dead on the floor, a mop looking like his hair… a huge washcloth with the fairy type gym’s branding…

“Gefe?” Milo says, his throat hoarse. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was possible. Was Bede dead? His body was so still, and the eldegoss couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Milo slowly drags himself to see Bede’s face. His eyes were closed and his forehead was coated in blood. Well, some of it was. What wasn’t covered in a sheen of fresh blood was a concerning blue colour, and looked slightly puffy.    
  
Milo presses his face against Bede’s cheek as tears started to well in his eyes. He didn’t want to think of the young man as dead, but that seemed to be the reality. But then, Milo feels it. A gentle movement of air coming from Bede’s nose. Bede was still breathing, even if it was light.

Milo smiles, relief washed over him. However, Milo still had the pressing question of ‘why or how Bede wounded up knocked out in the same broom closet as Milo.'

Bede’s hand twitches, and the boy groans. Milo gasps gently, and rubs his face against Bede’s, hoping it would help him get roused from unconsciousness. Bede groans more, louder than before and he stirs.

“Mnggff _ uck _ .” Bede says weakly as he forces himself to pick his head up off the cold ground. He slowly pulls himself up to sit, and his eyes opened only to squint.

Milo smiles. Bede is okay! Well, alive at least, okay is doubtful.

“ _ You got that fucking right, Milo,” _ Bede says, his voice weak.

...Was Bede talking to himself? Milo wondered. He didn’t see Salsa anywhere. .

“Nnnno I’m… I can hear you Milo… outside of my pounding headache… What time is it?”   
  
No idea. It’s getting dark which means evening. How are you hearing me Bede?   
  
“Mngff I’m psychic ‘pparently. Espoonzo told me about it before trying to kill me.” He looks at Milo. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say he failed, but we’re both pretty worse for wear, eh?”

Milo nodded. Espoonzo’s pokemon are how I got beaten like this. My leg is broken. Isn’t the blood bothering you Bede? You aren’t wiping it away.

Bede brings his left hand to his forehead, gently touching the red moisture. “Oh… I am bleeding… I can’t feel it at all. Dunno if it’s cause of the concussion or my metal allergy.”

Metal allergy? How can you be allergic to metal?

“Ungf… I never told you ‘cause it’s just my own personal struggles, but you aren’t the only one of us that’s cursed. Iiiimnn a fairy type human. No… I’m a psychic fairy human. Can’t forget I’ve somehow become telepathic. Anyway, I uh, have a type disadvantage against metal now. It’s why I have a huge hit on my head.”   
  
I think most people have a type disadvantage against being hit on the head with something metal.

“No I get allergic reactions to metal now. It’s why I can’t feel the fact that I’m bleeding, my head’s just swollen.”   
  
Oh. That’s very strange.   
  
“It is. Also I can make ribbons.”   
Bede starts to pull out a ribbon from his right sleeve. It looked like a sylveon feeler this time.

Oh that’s odd. Oh. Oh wow! That’s magic! Holy  _ shit _ Bede is that magic? How are you doing that?

“It’s bullshit. And I don’t know how I’m doing it, it just happens. I hate it cause the ribbons make my wrist all itchy. Made a whole rhyme about it.”   
Bede starts taking out a new ribbon, pulling out a large length with each tug. “Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, itchy right wrist, what colour ribbon is gonna come next?” He slumps. “Sure could use some happy thoughts right about now. Milo I don’t want to be found dead in a ditch. I’ve moved on in my life, I don’t want to be afraid of the same thing I was afraid of when I was 10.”   
  
_ Magic is real and Bede’s an actual fairy. _ Holy moly magic is actually real.

Bede sits up, and his head slowly turns to look at Milo, his expression blank, which, mixed with his injuries, looked intense.

“ _ Milo _ , do you think maybe, just,  _ maybe _ , this  _ isn’t _ your first time seeing magic?”   
  
Where else would I have seen magic?

“Oh, I dunno, maybe it relates to  _ you turning into an eldegoss? _ ”   
  
Oh. Right. I kinda forgot this isn’t normal to be honest.

Bede took a deep breath, having lost his breath berating Milo. “No… shit. I’m gonna see if I can stand. Wish me luck.”

With a lot of groaning and clinging to the shelves, Bede stood, his wobbly legs complaining about the feat. A wave of nausea washed over Bede, and the boy closed his eyes and took deep breaths to combat it.

Bede I think you should sit down you look like you’re gonna fall over.

“No..I’m…Fine… enough. We need to figure out a plan on how to get outta here. I’m sure Espoonzo’s coming back to finish the job and it’s kinda obvious neither of us are in fighting condition.”   
  
Why not have one of your pokemon break the door?   
  
Bede’s hand goes for where he keeps his pokeballs, but his hand freezes. Bede freezes.

“Milo we’re going to die in here. I left my pokemon at Marnie’s place.”   
  
  
Marnie, Bran and Fern found Gordie and the results were mixed.

“Gordie! Where’s Milo?”   
“The fuck’s a Milo, Bran?”   
“Oh great, not you too.”   
  
Marnie appears from a corner.

“Oh Bran you found Gordie. Gordie where’s Milo?”   
“What’s a Milo??”   
“Oh no…”   
  
Fern kicks open a vent and pops out from the ceiling.

“Oh there you guys are!”   
“Ah!”

“Ah!”

“Ah!”

“Have you guys asked Gordie where Milo is?”   
“ _ What’s Milo??” _

Fern rolled her eyes and showed Gordie a photo from her collection.

Gordie’s eyes go wide, and pulls down his glasses to take a better look.

“ _ That’s _ Milo? Sick gains.”

“I know right? He’s my future husband.”   
“Oh congrats. When’s the wedding?”   
“Fern! You are  _ not _ marrying Milo!”   
“You’re right. I need to find him first of course. So Gordie have you seen this man and or an eldegoss anywhere?”   
“No.”   
  
Bran rubs his temples. This was somehow worse than air pressure pains.

“Okay, so, for some reason, people are forgetting Milo existed.”   
“I want to blame a pokemon for this.” Fern said.   
“Is there some kinda pokemon that can manipulate memories?” Marnie said.   
  
Espoonzo, who had been walking nearby, started walking backwards behind a corner.   
  
“Ah! Espoonzo!” Bran called. Espoonzo begrudgingly walked to the squad.

“Yes?” Espoonzo said.   
“Have you seen Milo?”   
“Who?” Espoonzo said.

Everyone collectively groaned. “Okay, have you seen Bede?” Marnie asks, realising having an ill kid storm off may not have been a good idea.   
“Who is that?” Espoonzo said.

“Moody guy, blond-white hair, pink jacket?”   
“No.” Espoonzo said. “I am actually leaving, I’m having a mental breakdown right now and I need to be back here when everyone leaves… for mental health reasons.”   
“Alright, take care Espoonzo.” Bran’s eyes softened with concern. “Man, he doesn’t show it but it seems his pokemon attacking Milo really put him out.”   
  
“ _ Or _ , Espoonzo set his pokemon to attack Milo, and now he has Milo and Bede trapped in a remote broom closet, too weak to actually bang on the door crying for help.”   
“Fern, don’t start talking like that. We should look for Bede and if we don’t see him we’ll meet by the entrance.”   
“Wait, why am I getting involved?” Gordie said, as he got involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's unoffical name is "I decided I liked my version of Bede enough to give him a concussion, which is a rare honour only few of my ocs have experience + Why I should never write a scooby doo fic"


	18. The Unorthodox Pokemon Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so uh, everyone knows the pokemon world is utopic and the police are useless.

Bede was stress ribbon making. He didn’t think he would turn to a life of stress ribbon making, but here he was, stressfully pulling out ribbons from his sleeve.

We’re going to die, Milo thought. He was going through the last stage of grief for himself: acceptance. He had tried to deny to both himself and Bede, that they were going to get out of here, he grew frustrated, yelling to the sky with his hoarse voice, begged for some force above to help them, cried about the fact that he was going to die, and was now settling into sighing about it, waiting for the inevitable.

Bede learned that bandage counted as a ribbon according to his ribbon spawning wrist, and took advantage of the fact, wrapping his bleeding forehead wound with the magic bandage. After that it was back to the classic of satin ribbons. 

Bede’s phone pinged with a message, and both boys looked at Bede’s pocket.

“...I forgot I had a phone.” Bede said. Milo mentally swore at Bede, but was too miserable to put feeling into it.

Bede takes out his phone and sees he has a text from Marnie. Also it was 7pm good lord.

_ “Where are you?” _ _  
_ _ “I survived being murdered. I’m in a broom closet. Help.” _

_ “BEDE WHY DIDN’T YOU PHONE ME EARLIER??” _ _  
_ _ “Espoonzo hit my head really hard ok I forgot I had a phone get off my dick.” _ _  
_ _ “Coming.” _

“Yey…” Bede said, “Marnie’s coming to rescue us.”   
Yey… Does she know I’m an eldegoss?   
“Yah…”   
Cool…

Marnie had been worried for her fellow gym leader after he disappeared, and after searching around town (and maybe getting dinner), and after receiving the messages from him, she ran off to the stadium without telling the others.

Everyone had long since left, which meant the stadium was now locked. One could have got a special key so they can have access during the late hours, but Marnie wasn’t in that situation. She rattles the glass doors before deciding Spikemuth’s finance could pay for a new set. Marnie’s scrafty made quick work of the door, shattering it and allowing Marnie to head inside.

Marnie’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, as she wandered into the depths of the closed stadium. It was then that she realised that she didn’t know where Bede was.

_ “Where are you? What floor?” _ _  
_ _ “Top. Broom closet.” _

Marnie headed to the top floor, and realised that there were a lot of broom closet shaped doors and a lot of third floor. She puts her ear to one door, and knocks. When she doesn’t get a response, she goes to the next broom closet and repeats. At some point, she figured out a better solution.

_ “Feed some ribbon from under your door. There’s too many doors in here and I can’t tell what’s office, training room or broom closet.” _ _  
_ _ “What ribbon.” _ _  
_ _ “You make magic ribbon.” _   
  
Bede, while in the middle of pulling out ribbon from his sleeve as he watches his phone messages, gently mutters “oh yeah…”

_ “Ok” _

Marnie closes her phone and starts running, hoping to see a magical ribbon being fed from under one of the doors. Despite the stadium not able to host dynamax battles, it was still huge enough to have a giant pokemon or three standing inside, so Marnie had quite a workout in front of her.

  
  


Bede shoved a ribbon under the gap of the door, the boy resting his head on a mop as more ribbon (it was bright pink this time) was slowly fed through the door. Bede hears quiet footsteps, sees a light turn on and watches as the shadow of feet stop in front of the broom closet. They were saved!

  
  
Espoonzo calmly takes out the key for the broom closet. He had spent the afternoon strategising what he was going to do about the whole Milo situation, and had come up with a foolproof plan on how to render Milo a useless turnip of a pokemon, and so not have any blood on his hands.

...Except for the dead kid. But that wasn't a pokemon so Espoonzo felt no remorse over that. Espoonzo’s beheeyem was floating nearby, excited after Espoonzo told him that the alien would be allowed to scramble some memories into a delicious omelette of unrecoverable fuckup. 

He unlocks the door and to his surprise, the dead kid wasn’t very dead. The dead kid sits up and backs away from Espoonzo, breathing deeply. Milo hid behind him, terrified as well.

Very well. So there was an extra step in his plan. No big deal.

“I have a proposition for you.” Espoonzo said. “I will not kill you in exchange for all your memories, both yours and Milo’s. Consider it a fresh slate of no return.” Beheeyem, however, was way ahead of Espoonzo, raising his hand, the lights on it flickering for the child.

Marnie was confused. Did she miss it? She was sure she had done loops around the building already, so did she miss it? However, before her eyes there was a light, and an icy feeling in her stomach formed, knowing that this was bad news. She approaches quietly, peeking from a wall to see Espoonzo in front of an open door.  _ Come to finish the job most likely, _ Marnie thought. The girl lowers her head and runs towards the man. She tackles into him from the side, Spikemuth style, and the two were sent flying. The beheeyem stopped what it was doing and followed after his trainer, as Espoonzo and Marnie engaged in a pokemon free battle of fists.

Espoonzo may have been taken by surprise, but the man took the hits Marnie swung at him with ease, used to worse thrown by hattrem, and lands a strong blow to her cheek. The dark type gym leader recoiled from the attack, which was enough of an opening for the man to grab her wrists and get Marnie off of him. Marnie started to scream and kick as Espoonzo pinned her to the ground.

“Stand still! The less you struggle the sooner we can erase this entire thing from happening!”    
Espoonzo’s beheeyem raised it’s hand, its lights flickering. Marnie, trying to remove the man pinning her down, stopped mid-kick and froze.

“Finally. Now-” Donk! Espoonzo was hit with a metal bucket. The man whips around to see Bede, Milo tucked in his jacket, clutching the bucket in quivering hands. Bede swallows, taking a wobbly step backwards as Espoonzo stands up.

“You’re not doing a-any memory stealing, asshole!” Bede said, holding the bucket up threateningly. Espoonzo swipes the bucket from the curly haired boy easily, and glares at him. He holds the bucket up, ready to use it as a weapon himself.

“I am offering you a kindness! You will live in exchange for your memories. Why do you choose to die?”   
  
“Because Milo is my friend! ...And doesn’t deserve to live his life as a useless eldegoss wow  _ I didn’t need to bring up the whole friend thing  _ wait actually yes I did! He’s my friend fuck you!” Bede yells with the last of his breath. Milo smiles weakly at Bede’s speech, and Marnie takes the small window where she recovers from her brief hypnosis to bring out her grimmsnarl.

“Oi punk!” Marnie says as she stands up, wiping the blood from her mouth. “Let’s settle this like real gym leaders!”    
  
The beheeyem dashed to Espoonzo’s side, beeping in alarm at the hairy beast.

Sirens below begin to ring, coming from a police car that had come to investigate the damage Marnie did to the door and the possible breaking and entering situation that possibly happened. Espoonzo didn’t know this, and neither did Bede, which is why the concussed boy suddenly yells “Oh no you fucking don’t!” and leaps to try tackle Espoonzo. Bede could hear Espoonzo’s plan to flee from the police force, and as the older man makes a dash for the fire escape, Bede is dragged with him.

Bede was clutching to Espoonzo’s shoe, sliding on his back as to not hurt Milo. Espoonzo slams open the fire escape door and takes out his musharna, the adrenaline of his fear letting him able to drag Bede along with him with ease. The fire escape was a spiraling set of concrete steps, and Espoonzo was about to leap through the gap in the centre.

“W-wait!” Bede cried, as Espoonzo jumps over the rail, holding onto his two levitating pokemon. Bede’s hands lost their grip on Espoonzo’s shoe and the boy is sent tumbling down the stairs. He yells as he falls, hitting more steps, until a blur of purple and yellow leapt in front of him and the boy was saved by Marnie’s liepard grabbing his collar.

“Oh good…” Bede pants, raising his hand to pet Milo. “We’re alive.”

Espoonzo landed on the ground floor with ease, his heart racing and his mind whirling. He pockets his pokemon as he forces the fire escape door to open for him and sneaks outside. Luckily the coast was clear for Espoonzo, as the cops weren’t here.

“Sloppy! Sloppy!” Espoonzo chastised himself. His plan had been foiled by being outnumbered, and now he needed to disappear for a little bit.

“If only I had thought to erase Milo’s memories  _ earlier _ . I am a  _ fool _ .”   
  
“That’s interesting,” a voice said, and Fern popped out of a tree. Gordie followed with his own amazing landing and Bran… wasn’t in the tree with them and just stepped from behind the trunk.    
“Ignoring the whole fool stuff, you wouldn’t happen to know where  _ my _ memories of my beloved Milo went to, eh?” Fern said, stepping closer.

Espoonzo booked it, fear in his eyes, as he left the tree in the dust.

“I’ll catch him,” Fern says,and launches herself after the psychic gym leader.    
When it comes to herding animals (or Bede), it is always better to be slow and steady, but catching someone meant showing how fast one can sprint.

Espoonzo didn’t see the blur behind him until she jumped on him, making him lose all balance and fall over. Espoonzo sends out all his pokemon as he struggles to break free from Fern, and Gordie and Bran just stood where they were, watching the show.

“I can’t believe this is the second time we’ve see Espoonzo have a reaction and we didn't cause it this time.”   
“I know right. So far the score is one for Bran, me, and the world. One of these days we’ll break that tie and you’ll owe me five bucks.”   
“As if. You’ll owe me five bucks and you know it.”   
“Pshh. Should’a thought to involve criminal activities in our little game sooner. Is your friend going to be alright though?”   
  
Fern takes out her wheezing, and shouts loudly enough for the two leaders to hear.

“Carbnox! Use  _ explosion _ !”

She ducks, allowing Espoonzo a brief moment to scramble away before he and his team are sent flying. The police hear the commotion and approach the poison type trainer. 

“Oh c’mon, I was doing good this time!” She says, as she is handcuffed.

“We should prolly go check on the kids.” Gordie said, casually walking away from the mess of swears and handcuffs coming from Espoonzo and Fern being arrested.

Bede was clinging to Marnie, his hands and face a scary blue colour and swollen, and parts of his face are caked in blood. Marnie’s lip was starting to swell and there was a hint of smeared blood around her chin. Inside of Bede’s jacket was Milo.

Bran stopped and stared at Milo.

“Is that… Milo?”   
The eldegoss nodded. He looks at Gordie and Bran with his one open eye. There was an intelligence inside it. A very tired intelligence that wanted to take a nap.

“God, all of you look like you need a hospital, but uh, something tells me you guys would prefer to be in a town’s hospital where the police aren’t going to question you.”   
The kids nodded. Bran chuckled.

“It’s dark out but ah, I wouldn’t be so heartless as to not offer an emergency taxi ride.”   
Bran takes out a pokeball, and the man’s corviknight comes out. Bran pats the bird’s wing.

“Waddaya say, Templar? Care for a night time flight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368040077026394116/661303874254012458/unknown.png  
> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368040077026394116/661304492582502410/espoonzo_dies.png  
> I have no idea how to attach images to fics so have a these doodles.


	19. Returns

A nighttime taxi ride. Could you believe it? The corviknight’s wings made a gentle clank sound as it flapped its powerful wings, the inhabitants in the car resting against each other. Bede’s hand rested on Milo’s face, the boy relishing the cool plant on his swollen hand, and Milo enjoying the warmth.

Things felt… too calm for both Bede and Milo. The terror Fern had caused and put the boys through over the past days were over, but they were injured. And to make it worse, Milo was still a pokemon. However, they could cross that bridge when they got to it, for now they just had each other, Marnie and the spectacular view of Galar at night.

From the way streetlamps became like stars, to how the water rippled and reflected the stars above, to even the wisps of clouds above them, there was a bullshit, no, a  _ magic _ that made seeing Galar in all her nighttime splendour absolutely breathtaking.

Sometimes the kids would tap the other’s shoulder, recognising something far below them and wanting to point it out. Bede and Marnie quietly exclaimed as they passed Hammerlocke, the castle’s many wings burning brightly with lit lamps, creating the look of a majestic dragon, even to the taxi in the air.

The taxi lands in front of Spikemuth, and the three travellers were let out. Bran says his goodbyes, and the high flier takes off back to Redhillshire.

“Well, we probably should take ourselves to the centre,” Marnie says, gently touching her swollen lip. She had left the scene the most unscathed, and unlike the boys did not need a gentle hand to help her not fall over. 

According to Bede, Milo was fine, just sore. Marnie still couldn’t quite believe that the huge farmer she had last seen during the champion cup was now a banged up eldegoss, but after talking to him (through Bede translating what Milo wanted to say), poking his face gently and  _ maybe _ slipping into baby talk once or twice, Marnie got used to the fact that Milo was now a pokemon.

  
“Indeedee _ ee _ ...uh,” the indeedee said as Bede is hauled back into the centre. The nurse, wearing a different leather studded jacket this time, puts her hands on her hips and frowns at Bede in a motherly way.

“Didn’t you just leave a few hours ago? The fuck did you do to yourself in that time?”   
Bede, catching his breath, raised up a hand. The nurse’s expression softens as she steps away from the counter to look at what was wrong with it.   
“I was almost murdered and I had to touch something I’m allergic to, give me a break!”

Bede got treatment for his allergic reactions, while the nurse was looking for something for Bede’s skin reaction, the nurse realised that most of Bede’s symptoms pointed to anaphylactic shock and started to act appropriately. 

“HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD?” She shouted as she reached for an epipen to treat Bede with. “BULLSHIT?” He yelled back, alarm in his voice as he sees what is in her hands.The two, the woman and the tired boy, got into a fight as Bede refused to be stabbed by the metal needle, but long story short, Bede’s thigh hurt as he recovered quickly from what everyone assumed to be side effects of being poisoned. No amount of pecha berries and antidote could fix an allergic reaction.

  
  


It was pitch dark when Marnie took Bede and Milo back to her apartment. The girl sits back on the couch, Milo resting against a pillow on the opposite side of the couch, and Bede was enjoying his newfound non-dying body by pacing.

“Okay, but now we are back to square one in terms of turning Milo human...:”   
“Can’t you use some sorta magic to turn him back, Bede?”

“No.. I’d have no clue how to do that, and Milo’s supposed to earn his humanity back.”

I argue being beaten up counts as a lesson.

“Doesn’t work like that Milo.”   
“What did Milo say?”   
“Oh just that ‘cause he got the shit beaten out of him that he’s earned his humanity back.”

Marnie chuckles. “Yeah, I don’t think that works. What does he need to do to turn back?”   
“According to his mum, it’s about not doing things on his own like a selfish ass, actually talking to others like a normal person and not being as stubborn as a donkey.”   


Hey, my mom didn’t say things like that. Plus I think there’s other things she said that… may be true. I guess the biggest thing would be just being for my gym and not pushing off the work I need to do, as well as just knowing what I can and can’t do myself. 

“Damn right.”

“Though I think the most important lesson is that I don’t need to do everything on my own, there are others that I can rely on to help. Like my friends.”

“That’s fucking cheesy of you Milo, but maybe you’re onto something. The power of friendship is the kinda bullshit you’d expect to be involved in lifting a fucking curse.”

“How about we make friendship bracelets? Piers and I used to make ‘em.”   
  
“Marnie,” Bede says as he turns around,” that sounds stupid but it may juuuus- MILO  _ when did you turn human!?” _

Milo, now a human again, springs up from lying down, looking at his hands. “I-i’ve got hands again!” He presses them against his cheek, avoiding the part of his face that was now a black eye. “It’s a miracle.”   


“Marnie you were sitting next to Milo  _ how didn’t you notice a grown man laying next to you _ !?”

“Wait Bede I realised I spoke my last point  _ how did you not notice me suddenly speaking _ !?”   
“Milo you are on the couch with me  _ how did you not notice suddenly taking up more space _ !?”

“Hey in my defence I’m in pain!”

Bede took a deep breath, and took a good look at the farmer. His hair looked ruffled, with parts very short as if they had been shittly cut, his one eye closed and the skin around it was a dark blue bruise. He was also wearing pyjamas, a gentle blue pattern with black dots. Bede knew that Milo’s leg was likely still broken under his pants, but even when looking at all his injuries, all Bede could do was smile.

“Well, that was certainly some bullshit we didn’t get to see, but I’m glad it happened. Welcome back to being human, Milo.”

Milo chuckles. “It’s nice having arms again.” He stretches out one of his arms and beckons to Bede. “C’mere and get a hug.”   
The boy stood still, before sighing and rolling his eyes. “Fiiine.” He goes in for the hug, sinking into the warm embrace of the person Bede now considered a friend.

The trio celebrated a bit that night, ordering pizza for the two boys and debating about heading to the centre now for Milo’s wounds or if it could wait for morning. Of course, Milo was fine waiting for the morning, sleeping on the couch, but when morning came around, Milo became adamant about not leaving.   
  
“I can’t go out in my pyjamas! It’s embarrassing! Plus Bede and I look ragged-”    
“ _ Wow! _ ”

“-So everyone’ll look at us funny.”

Bede pulled a face, realising he no longer could just pick up Milo and tuck him in his jacket. He couldn’t just give Milo his jacket either, because the man would just break the sleeves by just having big meaty arms. Marnie, however, had a solution.

“Milo what size are you? Shirt and pants.”   
“Why do you want to know that?”   
“Well, I’m treatin’ you to Spikemuth’s specialty.”

  
  
Milo seemed unsure about Spikemuth’s specialty, as he looked at himself geared up in the most terrifying punk attire Marnie could possibly find. Maybe being in his pyjamas wasn’t  _ too _ big of a wound to his pride?   
  
Milo was a wide man, with strong arms and strong legs. It was fairly obvious that the sweet farmer boy looked like he’d kill a man with no remorse wearing this heavily studded leather jacket. The stiff material made any gentle part of Milo look jagged, and his muscles pulled the leather in a way to make himself look larger. The amount of spikes, studs and chains on the jacket made Milo look extra deadly, and not just to the allergic Bede.

He had a pink shirt underneath, Spikemuth’s gym branding printed on the front. Marnie also thought of a cap to complete the look as well as hide Milo’s ragged hair. It was even spikier than the jacket, and the chains rattled when Milo moved his head. And that wasn’t covering the ripped jeans or the huge boots that Milo could only wear one of right now.

With how everything came together, the only part of Milo’s face one could see was his eyes, one closed and bruised, and the other one full of concern as he looked in the mirror Marnie offered him.

“I look terrifying! I look like I came outta a bar fight and I still want to beat someone up!”

Marnie grinned. “So it’s perfect right?”   
“I! No...uh…” Milo looked to Bede for help.   
The curly haired boy smiled.

“Allergy concerns aside, don’t touch me with that, I think it looks hilarious. I bet your mum would love to see you in this.”   
“No…” Milo said, wincing as he realises there's a good chance his ma would see him in this getup.

The trio, with Marnie’s pokemon supporting Milo as he limps, go to the pokemon centre. The nurse, who decided to decorate her apron with safety pins and chains today, stares at Milo as he comes in. She blushes, a faint red dancing on her cheeks as she eyes the mysterious and rugged man after her own heart. She could have sworn time slowed down and music played, just for them.

...And then she sees he’s with Bede. Moment ruined.

“W-who is this now? Are you bored of injuring yourself that you decided to aim for an  _ extraordinarily handsome man- _ uh random bloke instead?”   
  
Milo raised his hand as he is helped to the counter. “I can explain. See, I was a pokemon until last night, I was here with Bede when he needed his allergies taken care of, I was the badly damaged eldegoss in his jacket, but now I’m a human again and I desperately need my broken leg checked out.”   
  
Bede facepalmed at Milo’s honesty, and the nurse looked at the man with a blank expression.   
“ _ Nanny Cook, _ ” she leaned over to her indeedee and whispered,”  _ please fetch The Book, I need to see what medicine doesn’t mix with drug usage.” _

Once Milo had been treated, an eyepatch covering his injured eye, his leg and foot put in a cast, and crutches to use, Marnie walked the boys to the corviknight taxi point.

“It was nice seeing you guys again… but uh,” Marnie chuckles, “here’s hopin’ our next meeting isn’t so weird and full of people turnin’ into pokemon.”   
Milo snorts. “Goodbye Marnie.”   
“Goodbye!”

And now, in the taxi, it was just Bede and Milo. Milo broke the silence that had fallen over the two like a gentle snow.

“How’s the whole mind reading thing going? I’m kinda not used to you not remarking on every thought I get.”   
“Ah…” Bede pursed his lips,”It kinda left me last night. I think the only reason I was able to do it without Salsa was because I was kinda dying the whole time, and well, other than my thigh where I was fucking stabbed, I’m pretty much healthier than ever.”   
“Oh. Do you think you’ll be able to do it without Salsa again one day? Without nearly dying from anaphylactic shock of course.”

“That’s the thing. Espoonzo told me that Salsa wasn’t really doing anything to make me be able to read minds in the first place, but at the same time I’ve never been able to do it without him.”   
Milo strokes his chin. “You know, this is the sort of thing only an expert can truly figure out.”   
“I don’t want to talk to an expert given he tried to kill me.”   
Milo chuckles. “I didn’t mean that, what I meant is that you should work it out yourself. Figure out how and why you can read minds. Maybe there’s something Espoonzo didn’t know that you can figure out. There’s always new things to discover.”   
“You think so?”   
“Definitely! Besides, your team is mostly psychics already, you’re well on your way to being an expert yourself.”

Milo looks around. “Though ah… if you do figure out how to be telepathic without your pokemon… please leave my head out of it.”

Bede snorts. “Oh trust me, I know way too much about you to want to read your mind again. But you make it sound so cheesy and magical, like the world has wonders to spare in terms of pokemon. Next you’re gonna claim you found something about grass types since you're the expert on ‘em”

“Oh definitely! A few years ago Turffield had a roserade problem, cause they liked to attack the wooloo for easy meals given their fur makes them easily trapped in thorns, but I figured out a way to lure roserade away from the farms.”   
“Oh?”   
“Yeah it’s really simple. You take wooloo tails after they’ve been docked and you use the scent of blood to lure them into the forestry where they don’t bother anyone, and just bury them for them to eat.”   
“W-wooloo tails?”   
“Oh, you know, the long tails they’re born with. You dock ‘em because the long tail only stands as a health risk for the sheep.”   
“Wooloo… have long tails…?”

“Wait you don’t know? I thought it was common knowledge.” Milo takes out his phone and searches for long tailed baby wooloo, and shows Bede. “See?”   
“ _ Wooloo have long tails oh my god _ .”   
Milo chuckles. “You’re taking this a lot harder than I did about magic.”

  
  
Milo had phoned his parents during the ride, and so the two boys found themselves with a small welcoming party as they hopped off the car.

Mrs o’ Yarrow had something to say about the state her son was in.   
“Milo! What happened to you?”   
“Well ma, it’s a crazy story-”   
“You’ve become a  _ city boy? _ ”   
Bede chuckles.

“W-what? No! Ma! It’s not a phase! I just needed clothes!”

“Uh-huh. I can't believe it.”   
“See honey? I told you Milo went to Motostoke. He’s even got a black eye from a bar fight.”   
“Hmph, and to think we were all worried for you here.”

“I think Milo looks cool. He’s like a scary big brother!”

“H-hold on! Let me explain please.”   
  
The three o’ Yarrows looked at Milo, burning holes with their stares.

“Right, so uh... one day I woke up as an eldegoss-”   
“ _ Oh dear lord… _ ” Bede whispered as Milo chose to tell the truth.

“-and I um, well I ended up trapped in Nessa’s house for a week. The Bede had me and realised who I was, and that’s why he was in Turffield with me and uhm… why do you look like you don’t believe me?”

“Milo my boy, you don’t need to spin an obviously tall tale just because you wanted to go to town… going to town. You just can’t disappear like that and not tell us.  _ Or _ get in bar fights” Mrs o’ Yarrow said as she cups her son’s cheek to look at his black eye.

“But it’s the-”

“What Milo is  _ struggling to admit _ -” Bede stepped in, “- is that he was actually out camping and got attacked by wild pokemon. He had practically nothing with him and he’s ashamed to have done such poor planning and nearly got himself killed. Luckily I rescued him though I’m not entirely unscathed.” Bede said, pointing to the bandage wrapped around where he had got hit.

Mrs o’ Yarrow puts her hands on her hips. “Hmph. So what you’re telling me is that I now have to take care of three injured boys?”   
“Three?” Bede said, looking for a third o’ Yarrow sibling. There was Milo with his broken leg, Lambert with his broken arm, but who was the third?

“I’m talking about you of course. Don’t think I’m letting you go home alone looking like you’re going to fall over and bleed to death.”   
  
Bede stands still, his face turning scarlet and his eyes wide. He was incredibly confused. Why did Milo’s mum want to deal with him? She had no obligation to give him the time of day and here it sounded like she was going to nanny him.

Mrs o’ Yarrow tilted her head to the side. “Unless I’m missing something? I assume you’re one of Milo’s friends.”   
  
“Oh he is, ma. I think you just took him by surprise, that’s all.” Milo said. He leans on one of his crutches and with his other hand, pats the stunned Bede on the shoulder. “So, shall we head home?”

The walk to the o’ Yarrow’s house was slow, and Milo could feel gossip boil as more people told everyone else that Milo was back but did you  _ see _ what he was wearing? The warm sun on the leather wasn’t helping, and Milo was burning with embarrassment and heat. He may have been distracted by that, as he soon notices that his dad corralled the other two boys to fall back, leaving Milo to walk beside his mother, and as Milo looked back at him, his father mouthed out ‘ _ talk to her’. _

Right. There was that to be done.

“Hey ma?”   
“Yes Milo?”   
“I’m sorry. For um… everything, I guess. For that fight we had, about me not taking my role seriously and uhm… being an ass too. I kinda realise now I’ve been looking at being a gym leader the wrong way.” Milo glances back at Bede, who gave Milo a thumbs up.

“Apology accepted. But you’re not off the hook yet my dear.”   
“Huh?”   
“If you really mean it Milo, then you wouldn’t mind doing something for me. Think of it as a challenge since you trainer lot like those.”   
“And that would be?”   
“If you are serious about taking your role seriously, then you wouldn’t mind finding something in Turffield you can fix to prove you can do your job.”   
“Wait, how does that prove anything if I do it?” Milo turns around to look at Bede, looking for help. The curly haired boy clasped his hands together and apart. 

Oh!

“I can uhm, get help doing the challenge?”   
  
Mrs o’ Yarrow smiled at her unsure boy. “I don’t know, you’ll have to figure out if it proves you can be a leader.” She gently pats Milo’s leather clad sleeve. “Of course, don’t stress about it now ye big doof, you can focus on that  _ after _ your league thing and especially after that leg of yours heals.”   
Milo gasps. “The gym leader’s league! I completely forgot!”   
Bede chuckles, the boys coming back to the family formation. “Really milo?”   
  
He didn’t say it, but Milo knew the boy was teasing him. They had  _ just _ been in Redhillshire, and Milo had watched Gordie train his pokemon for the league… and do a lot of flips and handstands too.

“Sh-shut up you little shit.” The o’ Yarrows gasped at Milo’s lighthearted cuss, as the gym leader had to quickly blame Bede for making him pick up the habit.


	20. A Party to Celebrate

Despite his broken leg, Milo took what little time he had left to train his pokemon, have them brush up on their movements, their stances as well as their attacks. Milo decided to bench Gala, the farmer putting his foot (the non-broken one) down on his flapple’s shenanigans and was going to use his appletun instead.

He had fed his team all a hearty breakfast before leaving the inn at Wyndon, and despite the riled hype the pokemon on his belt had, Milo almost felt dread knowing he still had to face all of the gym leaders in the stadium as well as reporters that swarmed around him as he left the taxi for the stadium. 

They all stared at his leg, and his disappearance had sparked a lot of attention for the grass type gym leader, even though he didn’t particularly want any of it. Milo tugged his sunhat as low as he could, hiding his mangled hair from the flashing cameras as he headed into the stadium foyer. One by one, the gym leaders approached Milo to give him a welcoming hug.

“It’s a relief to see you are well,” Kabu said, the older man wiping a tear from his eye. Knowing the pain Kabu had gone through just during that one meeting alone, Milo tried to make himself seem less injured than he actually was. Anything to help make Kabu feel better. 

“Same to you Kabu. I’m sorry I put you through so much stress.”  
  
Kabu shakes his head. “Don’t be, the fact that you are here now is all that matters.”   
  
Melony walked up to the two boys, offering Milo a smile. “Oh, don’t you want to sit down, dear?” She says. “I can get you a chair so you don’t have to walk too much.”   
Milo thought to decline, but with both Kabu and Melony, essentially the gym parents, looking at him with concern, he relented. “I would, actually. My arms get sore from using these crutches too much.”

Melony fetched Milo a seat and the boy happily took it, not actually realising he most definitely needed it until he was comfortable. Now he didn’t want to leave. Oh well.

Bede hunted Milo down after the fairy type leader’s first battle, a sheen of sweat on the lad’s face and his hands shaking.

“Holy shit Milo, how the fuck do you do this? Everyone looks at me to see what I do and not my pokemon.”  
Milo chuckled. “Did you give them a good show?”   
“You bet I did.”

“Well that’s all that matters.”

Nessa sat down next to Milo, waiting for her match. Milo realised this was a good opportunity to maybe talk about some things. Not even anything important, just some small talk as his way of apologising how he may have treated her in the past.

“Oh, hey Ness.”  
“Hi Milo.”   
“So uhm, how are you?”   
“I’m good. Oh, that reminds me. Did Bede show you that eldegoss I called about?”   
“Pillow? Yeah, I did.” Milo didn’t like the fact that he had to lie, but everytime he tried to explain himself it was treated as a joke, so there wasn’t any other options. “Bede and I released him into the wild, we found his family and everything.”

“Really? That’s great! I thought he was hand raised at first, but he was actually a wild pokemon? That’s so crazy!”  
“It is. Oh, and uh,” Milo started, recalling a comment Nessa made about eldegoss’ typings, “You do know that eldegoss isn’t a fairy type, right?”   
“Uhm, yeah, sure…” Nessa said, glancing away guiltily.   
“Eldegoss is actually a pure grass type, despite it’s more mystical look. Another good pokemon is ludicolo though.” Milo took out his ludicolo from his ball, the pineapple groove duck not missing a beat to start grooving. “See, ludicolo’s actually a water type as well.”   
“It is?” Nessa said, leaning forward to look at the duck better. Who could resist talking about a pokemon of your favourite type?

“Yup, they’re very rare in nature, but it lives mostly in swampy areas underwater. It collects rainwater in its lilypad when it rains.”

“It does? Oh wait I-!” Nessa said, reaching for her drednaw’s pokeball. However, a message came out through the speakers, asking for Nessa to head to the field. 

“-Ah. Maybe next time, Milo?” Nessa said with a smile on her face as she got out her chair and started to leave for her match.

“With pleasure Ness, good luck!”

The matches for Milo went smoothly, though Milo was sure he had been politely scheduled out of a few due to his leg. It was slightly bothersome, since he did want to prove how much he had improved, even if it was just his mindset. But perhaps that was just paranoia talking? Afterall, Milo had been cursed, and now that the curse was lifted he was very _aware_ of how his faults could be punished. He hoped whatever mysterious fey force that was watching him would leave him alone now that they knew he was being a good boy.

The league wrapped up after the next few days passed, and soon all the gym leaders were in a nice venue, wearing suits and evening dresses and eating small finger food. Milo was in a suit himself, a shirt with a green bowtie, and sat at the table he was assigned to. 

Around him, he could hear people talking, sharing jokes and stories, and maybe a bitter word or two.

“Do _not_ discuss bath water with me ever again Raihan,” Nessa said firmly to the tall draconic man.

Though before he could hear more of the conversation, Gordie approached Milo.

“Yo Milo! ‘Grats on the engagement!”  
“I’m… not engaged?” Milo said, lifting up his non-married hands for Gordie to see. “What made you think I’m getting married?” 

Gordie’s face dropped. He had a slight suspicion maybe that Fern girl lied about Milo being her future husband. He pushed up his glasses to hide his blush. “...Nevermind!” And he moonwalked away from the miscommunication.

Milo smiled to himself. What an odd guy, Gordie. Speaking of odd guys, where’s Milo’s favourite fey? 

Ask and you shall receive. Bede held Opal’s arm as they traversed down the small set of steps, the two fairy experts being fashionably late. Of course, there was a lot to take in, in both what the two were wearing and Bede’s demeanor. The two were wearing matching outfits based off of weezing. Bede had a grey jacket on, with a green cravat over it, with a small grey top hat with a green ribbon around the base. Opal wore a simple grey evening dress, with a green feather boa over it, and a significantly taller top hat on her head.

From the way Bede looked whenever Opal wasn’t looking at him, the matching attire wasn’t his idea and he didn’t have a say in the matter. But when Opal did look, Bede’s entire attitude changed, as he tried to imitate a sassy child, and walked with a strange sway. Something told Milo that this was probably a side effect of boot camp hell.

Bede escorted Opal to her seat, and now that he was free from his old bat of a mentor, he went straight for Milo. 

...after he picked up a sausage roll or two.

...and also a meatball.

“Hey Milo,” Bede said as he shovelled a meatball in his mouth. Milo snorted and shook his head.   
“Aren’t you eating that a bit quickly Bede?”   
“Maybe. But I mean, I can’t exactly eat the main course so I have to survive off of as much finger food as I can get.”

“Why can’t you eat main course with us?”  
Bede points to the cutlery next to Milo. “Allergies.”

Right, Bede couldn’t touch metal. “Well I mean, if you want, we could go get take out after all the formalities are done. There’s a nice fish and chips place by the inn if you want.”

Bede’s eyes went wide. “Wait, really?”  
Milo nods. “Of course. I still owe you for the pancakes.”

Bede seemed to relax after that. Milo had figured out that Bede didn’t like needing to owe people things. He could handle doing the occasional kindness, but didn’t like being in debt himself. Like a textbook fairy. 

Kabu walked in front of the room, where a podium had been set up, and smiles. 

“Hello friends, I am glad to see everyone here. As with every year, our league draws to a close, and we hold our breath to see how we have performed in the eyes of our fellows. Without further ado…” He unfolds a paper that had been neatly tucked in his breast pocket, andreads what it has to say.

“In majors, we have seen competition from our two newest gym leaders. There were fears that they could not perform as well as the ones they succeeded, but I am proud to announce that Bede and Marnie of Ballonea and Spikemuth will be part of majors next year. We have also had the inter-city battle for Stow-On-Side and for Circhester, And while Allister has proven to be a capable trainer in his young age, it is Bea who will keep her position. Among Melony and Gordie…”   
  
Milo started to drift off. He still applauded with everyone when it came, but his head was filled with other thoughts. Things like how his leg itched in the cast, how much he could eat before he would head out with Bede, and also about his mother’s challenge.

Despite the fact that he couldn’t walk much, it didn’t mean he didn’t have a lot of visitors. His gym trainers came and visited of course, reuniting with their gym leader and happy to tell him about their progress with training their pokemon. Then there was other people in town. Deirdre visited, the cotton farmer missing the poor guy, and Milo could _see_ what his mom was thinking as the two hugged. The one florist came by as well, and that’s where he got his idea of how he could tackle his challenge. 

The woman had mentioned that some of the foot paths had got wet with slight rain, and now it was difficult to transport the wheelbarrows full of flowers without going the long way around on the main roads. So now he was thinking about how he could fix it. Maybe paving the paths would help? Or perhaps pouring water over the path and encourage it to set in a much better, firmer path. It would mean needing to go to the pokejob service to hire some part time pokemon for either job, but it would work. He’d just have to see to that later.

Kabu ended his speech, announcing congratulations to the minor division for their hard work that year, and that he hopes to see the flames of competition grow hotter next year. There had been no significant change in the rosters, as everyone in the major division kept their spot.

Everyone clapped one last time. The minor division would be disappointed to have not have anyone move up to majors, but they wouldn’t speak out about their disappointment. 

After the speech, things settled down for the evening. Celebratory drinks were had, and food started to be rolled out to be eaten. Milo stands up after a light meal and walks over to Bede.

He taps the boy on the shoulder, prompting him to turn around.

“You ready to go?”  
Bede nods, and is about to get up when Opal politely coughs to get the two boy’s attention.

“Ahem. While you two are here, I have something I would like to ask.”  
“Oh?” Milo glances to Bede. Bede seemed curious what his mentor had to ask as well.   
  
Opal points to her very tall top hat with a talon. “I’m happy with this for now, but I do miss my other hat. I would like to know when you will be giving my sun hat back, Milo.”

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thats it! Thank yall that read this! I can't believe I filled 149 pages of a journal with these shenanigans. Had to get a new journal and everything :"D


End file.
